Blue Jackets play home opener with Gaudreau brothers in mind - ESPN

Johnny Gaudreau's Columbus teammates were given a few options for how to handle their emotions during the Blue Jackets' home opener.

If you want to cry, cry.

If you want to laugh, laugh.

The only rules — play the game the way «Johnny Hockey» would and with him in mind.

Emotions ran high in Columbus on Tuesday night, when the Blue Jackets paid tribute to their star and his late brother Matthew at their home opener against the Florida Panthers. Among the highlights: A banner was raised to the rafters in Gaudreau's memory, as fans cheered, both teams stick-tapped the ice in the traditional hockey salute, and his family looked on, their arms intertwined.

And before the puck dropped, the teams stood still as 13 seconds — Johnny Gaudreau's number — ran off the clock and with his left-wing position vacant, the Blue Jackets sending four skaters onto the ice instead of the usual five. The puck dropped, and the the Blue Jackets' Sean Monahan passed it to Florida's Sam Bennett.

Monahan and Bennett were teammates with Johnny Gaudreau in Calgary. It couldn't have been more fitting.

«I don't want anyone to be sad,» Meredith Gaudreau, Johnny's wife, said in a recorded message played shortly before face-off. «I want you all to be inspired by the life that John lived. That means love your family first and foremost, and when it's time to drop the puck let's love the game that John loved.»

Johnny Gaudreau, the Blue Jackets' star who would have been entering his third season with the club and 11th NHL season overall, and his brother Matthew Gaudreau were killed on Aug. 29 when police said they were struck by a suspected drunken driver while they were riding their bicycles on a rural road in New Jersey on the eve of their sister Katie's