“I was scared,” wrote Meredith Gaudreau, in an open letter to her late husband, Johnny Gaudreau, in September last year. Her anxiety stemmed from the knowledge that she was pregnant with the couple’s third child. And just a week after telling her husband about it in private, the Columbus Blue Jackets’ star and his brother, Matthew, were taken from the world following a car accident. The bolt out of the blue shattered Meredith. But she held herself together.

In April 2025, Meredith gave birth to a baby boy, Carter Michael Gaudreau, and took to social media to announce the good news. “He looks exactly like his daddy too,” she wrote, overjoyed about how the newborn resembled his father, Johnny. But while it was a joyous moment for the family, the NHL star’s widow still can’t forget how tough a time she had managing her pregnancy all by herself.

In a post by WBNS’ Nicole Shearin on X from October, the late Johnny Gaudreau’s wife talked about how she navigated the difficult times without having her husband to show her the way. “I went through the entire pregnancy without him. I was really nervous to give birth without him, too,” she said during the conversation. To make matters worse, the couple didn’t even get enough time to discuss the name for the kid who was on their way.  “You know, we didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl…But there is some gut feeling I had that it was going to be a boy, and he looks exactly like John. When I saw him for the first time, he was kind of exactly what I pictured,” Meredith added, with a glow on her face.

All that happiness, and Meredith didn’t have the only person around who she wanted to share it with the most. Her children, too, aren’t equipped with the mental provision to comprehend the whole situation. “My boys are too young to even understand, but Johnny will light up at pictures of him and I’ll play videos, John’s voice around Carter and he kind of lights up. But for three-year-old Noa, her dad was her light,” Mrs. Gaudreau said about how three siblings react differently to the prolonged absence of Johnny from their lives.

What pains Meredith even further is that her oldest, Noa, has started to question why her dad isn’t there with his family. “To be honest, I haven’t been able to say he died, but I have said he’s in heaven and she’ll say things like ‘Well, let’s call him or let’s go there,’ and I just say, you know, ‘We can’t.’,” she said, looking evidently saddened by how she can’t give her daughter what she would love the most in the world.

Goes without saying that it has been tough for the Gaudreau family. What’s even worse is that Johnny’s sister-in-law was also pregnant with Matthew’s child when the brothers passed away. “The only person who can relate to me is my own sister-in-law. I see her and my heart breaks for her. I’m sick for her,” Meredith said about how the sisters-in-law leaned on each other for support to cope with the demise of their husbands. Thankfully, though, the hockey community made sure the family wasn’t going through the ordeal alone and did everything it could to show up with support.

The NHL stood firm by Johnny Gaudreau’s family

The 4 Nations Face-Off, held in February this year, was a landmark international hockey tournament. Touted as a substitute for the NHL All-Star game, there was incredible hype surrounding the competition. Before hitting the ice, Team USA members revealed how they had a stall in the locker room for Gaudreau, along with his jersey and gear. Meredith couldn’t have asked for a better tribute for her late husband. “We definitely want to win it for them, to honor Johnny and Matthew,” Brady Tkachuk noted how the Americans wanted to pay honor to their fallen teammate by winning the 4 Nations gold.

In April, the Calgary Flames, Johnny’s former team, sent a special package for Carter, containing a customized jersey tailored to the newborn’s size with Johnny Gaudreau’s number on the back. Meredith was once again overcome with emotions and took to social media to note how classy the move was by the NHL team. After winning the 2025 IIHF World Championship in May, the USA team members once again made it a point to remember Gaudreau in their celebrations, and Meredith gave a shoutout to the boys of her own.

On August 13, 2024, the day when Johnny would have turned 32, fans from all 32 NHL camps converged to remember his life and legacy. With every move, the hockey community kept assuring Meredith that she wasn’t without shoulders to lean on as she found her path in life. With that, we can hope that Gaudreau’s three children will grow up knowing how dearly beloved their father was by his colleagues and critics alike.