"It's never been even talked about it," he said. "We have really good relationships. The media talk about problems between me and the Blues, it's never been a problem. If there was going to be a problem, I would not sign for eight years."

Tarasenko said he didn't speak on Saturday when the rest of the team did as they cleaned out their lockers because he was still mad and thought it would be worse to say the wrong thing than to say nothing at all.

"I wasn't ready to talk," he said. "I was too frustrated, too upset, too (angry) about our loss and I don't want to give you guys a hard time to talk with me because I was so mad. We can talk now.

"The more days you don't play hockey, the more you recognize how close you've been to the Stanley Cup Finals. It's a bad experience, but it's still an experience for us. A lot of guys on our team have never been there, never been this far in the playoffs. It's good to have this experience in your life because you know now what it takes to go this deep and give you a chance to prepare better and go deep next time."

As for what he would do this summer, Tarasenko said it would be what he normally does, only more so.

"First of all, get a vacation," he said. "Then go to my home town (in Russia), see my parents, grandparents, show them our son. It gives you even more (inspiration) when you practice in a gym every day. The emotions give you a really good bump. I'll be doing the same I do every summer but even more. Some areas in my game I want to improve so I have stuff to work on. It's a really good feeling before summer when you know what you're working on and then you can see results after. I'm looking forward to a really hard working summer and looking forward to playing better next year."

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