`As those great players do, he just saw it at a different level'
It was just over a year later that he'd return to sleep on the floor of Matthew's dorm during summer classes.
“Matty, with his compete level, he pushed his brother so much,” said legendary skipper Jerry York, who ran the bench at Boston College from 1994-2022, handing the reins to Brown when he retired as the NCAA'S all-time wins leader. “I think part of the reason that Johnny was so good was the younger brother pushing him hard like that. It was a fun dynamic to watch.”
The younger Gaudreau would eventually become an offensive go-to guy for the Eagles, tying for the team lead in points as a senior.
Not to be overlooked is another important contribution — Johnny left it up to Matthew to decide what college they would attend. As the story goes, he picked Boston College because he knew that was his older brother's preference.
“They brought a ton of joy to the rink,” said Brown, who was a longtime assistant/associate under York. “They were happy to be there, like truly happy to be there. Big smiles, all the time. The things they could do on the ice, that's what people who don't know them remember because they were both magical in their own ways. But everyone just loved having them on the team. They were tremendous teammates. They lit up the room when they came in.”
Johnny was listed by the NHL at five-foot-nine and 163 pounds. And if he weighed in right after that charter flight back to Calgary, it may have been five per cent sugar.
Conroy figured he'd be starving, and would want some food in his belly as he prepared to play his first NHL game two nights later, so he had a submarine sandwich ready to go.
“He takes two bites ... and all of a sudden he rolls up the sub and puts it under his seat, and I'm thinking, `Well, I guess he wasn't that hungry,'” Conroy reminisced at last Wednesday's candlelight vigil outside the Saddledome. “Out came a big bag of Skittles, and for the next 25 for 30 minutes, he just pounded those Skittles. I'm thinking, `This is the next superstar of the Calgary Flames? I don't know about that.'
“But two nights later, when we saw him score that goal, for me, that's when I thought, `This is going to be special.'”
It was.
Johnny was always the smallest guy — or the lightest, anyway — on the ice, and yet he often had the biggest impact.
During his nine-season stint with the Flames, he racked up 201 goals and 609 points in
602 regular-season outings. On countless nights, Sean Monahan or Elias Lindholm or Matthew Tkachuk would stand in front of a crowd of media and try to describe another pass that had basically bounced off the blade of their stick for a tap-in goal.
Including two campaigns in Columbus, Johnny totalled 743 points in NHL action. Dating back to his debut, only eight dudes were more productive over that stretch.
“He saw it earlier, saw it faster. He just saw it better than everybody,” Treliving said. “It was happening in his mind in slow motion. He just had elite, elite hockey sense.
“And he was so skilled but what was underappreciated by people, other than those who were around him, is the competitiveness. He's a competitor, an ultimate competitor. He hated to lose. He hated not to have success. He was wildly competitive. And as those great players do, he just saw it at a different level.”
“There was a burning desire in that kid to be the best,” echoed Josh Jooris, who was Johnny's roommate for two seasons with the Flames. “He'd be checking the scoring stats. He wanted to lead the league in scoring every year. He deeply wanted to be the best, all the time, and that was in anything.
“We had battles all the time — video games, NHL and just more recently at Mony's wedding ... Obviously, Johnny had been playing a lot of cornhole. I think that was a big thing at his place in Jersey. So him and TJ Brodie paired up. We played for a shot, I think, at Mony's wedding. It was me and (Lance) Bouma against Brodie and Johnny and they beat us 21-1. I have a cottage, and we play a lot of those lake games and we play cornhole. So I thought I'd give him a run, but ...
“He was good. He was good at a lot of things.”
Anaheim Ducks head coach Greg Cronin, who had originally recruited Gaudreau to Northeastern University, described Johnny as a prime example of “uncompromised self-belief, somebody who believes in themself no matter what.”
“And from the most unassuming athlete. I mean, if you saw him walking around, you'd say, `There's no way this guy is playing in the NHL.' Even when he was 25, right? But he had this ferocious level of conviction and confidence that is really what propelled him to where he was, what he was. Any kid that is small, weak, whatever, lacks some sort of physical superiority, just look at Johnny and look at what he did. It was incredible.”
“I remember watching his first NHL game, because him and (fellow Eagles alum) Billy Arnold signed and played their first game together,” added Barry Almeida, who not only played with Johnny in the NCAA but later with Matthew in the ECHL. “And Johnny scored in his first game. It was just so fitting. It was like, `This guy has been doubted his whole life because he was too small.' And then he goes in there and he was a seven-time all-star on a trajectory to be a Hall of Famer. It was fun to watch. And then off the ice, just the best guy. I know it sounds cliché, that's what everyone is saying, but he really was. He was a joy to be around.
“I don't know if he realized how good he was, or maybe he did, but he was just so grounded. He never thought he was better than anybody else, but he was the best player on the ice.”
You may have noticed this about the Gaudreau family photos that have been shared on social media and posted on various news sites — Johnny appears to be the tallest of the bunch.
It's pretty impressive that Matthew earned a professional paycheque for five seasons, even if he never skated on the biggest stage. He was generously listed by the AHL at five-foot-nine and 155 pounds.
“Usually with brothers, let's say one is the NHL and the other one is in the minors, making their way through hockey, some people will say, `Oh, you only signed a contract because of your brother,'” said Frank Dichiara, who played with Matthew for two seasons in the ECHL — one with the Worcester Railers and the other with the Reading Royals — and was among the guests when his buddy married Madeline in 2021. “But that wasn't the case at all. Matty was a hell of a player. He was extremely skilled. Maybe not the fastest guy but, similar to his brother, he was very elusive. He would go into the corner sometimes and you're thinking, `Oh my gosh, he's going to get hit. He's going to get blown up.' But he'd somehow find a way to come out with the puck and the defenceman would be running himself into the glass or something like that.
“He was extremely gifted, extremely talented. His vision, his hockey IQ, it was some of the best I've seen. He was a very good hockey player. He was a professional hockey player, for sure, and he would have been one even without his brother being who he was.”
In 2019, Matthew signed an Ahl-level contract with the Flames' farm club, then based in Stockton, Calif. According to Dichiara, that deal included a unique clause.
“He negotiated that if he was going to get sent to the Coast, he didn't want to go to Kansas City,” Dichiara said, referring to the then-home of Calgary's ECHL affiliate. “He wanted to go play in Pennsylvania, close to family, which is just the Gaudreaus in a nutshell.”
Matthew would log only four appearances with the Heat, spending the bulk of that winter in Reading, Pa., which was roughly a 90-minute drive from his hometown.
“I think it was special for Johnny to have him in the organization with us, for sure,” Conroy said of Matthew's stint in the Flames' system. “He would rather have seen Matthew have success than him have success.”
He just wanted to see him play, period.
“I remember we were in the playoffs in the ECHL and we're playing in Worcester and Johnny shows up with his family at the game,” Almeida said, referring back to 2018, when the Flames had failed to qualify for the post-season. “We're talking about an NHL all-star. This guy could have been in the Bahamas. He could have been anywhere he wanted. And he came to watch his brother Matty play. They were just so close.”
I think part of the reason that Johnny was so good was the younger brother pushing him hard like that. It was a fun dynamic to watch.”
Hockey is a business of tough exteriors, but there will be plenty of tears shed at Monday's funeral.
As Erik Gudbranson, Johnny's teammate in both Calgary and Columbus summed up: “Our hearts are shattered in a million pieces.”
In a moving tribute, Flames franchise icon Lanny Mcdonald urged other past stars to give the Gaudreau brothers a warm welcome.
“Go easy on those legends up there in heaven's hockey rink, boys,” the 71-year-old Mcdonald, both an inductee and chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame, wrote on Instagram. “You're getting there earlier than expected, but they'll take good care of you.”