An elite player a decade into his NHL career and the all-time U.S. leading scorer in international play, Johnny Gaudreau was on track to be in Milan for the tournament that wraps up Sunday when the Americans play rival Canada for the gold mdeal. Guy Gaudreau said USA Hockey was gracious enough to tell the family their oldest son was on the projected roster.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHe wanted to be on this team,\u201d Guy Gaudreau said during the third period of the U.S. semifinal win on Friday night. \u201cAnd it would\u2019ve been nice if he\u2019d been here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. is honoring the Gaudreau brothers with a tribute to them in their locker room at the Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena. A blue No. 13 Gaudreau jersey hangs there as a reminder of the player known as \u201cJohnny Hockey,\u201d who was beloved by so many on the national team and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means everything \u2014 we all know he should be here with us,” said Dylan Larkin, who played with Gaudreau at multiple world championships. \u201cHe should be with us. We love him, and I like that we continue to think about him and I wouldn\u2019t imagine it any other way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jane and Guy Gaudreau, along with Johnny\u2019s widow, Meredith, and their two oldest children arrived in Milan on Friday. The Gaudreau parents had been planning a trip to Las Vegas and initially hesitated after USA Hockey invited them to attend.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur two daughters, for 24 hours, they just kept at us: \u2018You have to go. The boys would want you to do this. This would mean so much to John,\u2019\u201d Jane said. \u201cIt just means so much to our family, and we\u2019re so excited to remember what our boys meant to hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Gaudreau family connections to players on the roster run deep, from Boston College to the NHL. In addition to the world championships, Johnny played with Noah Hanifin on the Calgary Flames and Zach Werenski on the Columbus Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n
\u201cJohnny was close to a lot of guys in that room,\u201d Hanifin said. \u201cWe know he\u2019d be here with us, so we\u2019ve been thinking about him and carrying him with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Werenski said after he and his teammates advanced to the final that Meredith reached out to his wife a few days earlier to let them know they were coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great having them here, and it\u2019s super special,\u201d Werenski said. \u201cWe\u2019re happy that we made it to the gold-medal game so they can watch that and be a part of it. It\u2019s on us to make them proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that it would have been much of a debate, but coach Mike Sullivan confirmed what management told the Gaudreaus: Johnny would have been on the team if he were still alive, based on his body of work and how well he has played in a U.S. uniform.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was one of America\u2019s very best,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cHe\u2019s just a good person on the ice and off the ice, and I think he\u2019s an inspiration to our players to this very day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Players still talk about Gaudreau, and \u201call the stories are funny,\u201d according to Charlie McAvoy, who played alongside him at worlds.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust an amazing person, just an infectious personality,\u201d McAvoy said. \u201cThe detail, really, with our staff and our equipment staff especially to make sure that he\u2019s always with us, little reminders of him in the room, and they just go a long way. You always see them. They\u2019re just gentle. They\u2019re right there. But we know that he\u2019s always with us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along with Johnny\u2019s No. 13 jersey is that number on the wall alongside Matthew\u2019s No. 21. It\u2019s similar to what USA Hockey did a year ago at the 4 Nations Face-Off, when Guy Gaudreau took part in practice as a guest coach.<\/p>\n
This would have been Johnny Gaudreau\u2019s first chance to play at the Olympics after the NHL did not participate in 2018 and 2022. But it almost certainly won\u2019t be the last time his jersey hangs in the U.S. locker room at the game, a tradition that could continue for years to come.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope so,\u201d Larkin said. \u201dI sure hope so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An elite player a decade into his NHL career and the all-time U.S. leading scorer in international play,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465631,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[46305,895,26,5294,896,5,4,292,5966,43,25639],"class_list":["post-465630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary-flames","tag-2026-milan-cortina-olympic-games","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-flames","tag-calgaryflames","tag-flames","tag-hockey","tag-nhl","tag-nhl-hockey","tag-olympic-games","tag-sports","tag-winter-olympic-games"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116108506172323000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}