“When I look at Carter, I just don’t see anything but John,” Meredith tells PEOPLE
NEED TO KNOW
- Meredith Gaudreau shares how she’s helping her son Carter know his dad, NHL star Johnny Gaudreau
- Johnny tragically died in 2024, just a week after learning Meredith was pregnant with Carter
- “Especially when he smiles, I think of John,” Meredith tells PEOPLE
When Meredith Gaudreau looks at her third child, son Carter, she doesn’t “see anything but John,” she tells PEOPLE.
Sixteen-month-old Carter, she says, gives her “flashbacks” to her NHL star husband, Johnny Gaudreau, who tragically died at the age of 31 on Aug. 29, 2024, when he and younger brother Matthew, 29, were hit and killed by an alleged drunk driver.
Meredith was around seven weeks pregnant at the time, and while Johnny would never get to meet his third child, the couple had a week of shock and bliss, secretly knowing Carter was on the way.
“We just kind of laughed when it happened,” Meredith recalls to PEOPLE of telling Johnny she was pregnant. “It was more like, of course, this is what we’re doing. We were excited. He just kept saying, ‘This is about to be crazy.’”
Credit: Meredith Gaudreau/Instagram
The couple, who wed in 2021, welcomed daughter Noa, 3, in October 2022, followed by 2-year-old son Johnny in February 2024. When they learned Carter was on the way, five months after “baby” Johnny’s arrival, the Columbus Blue Jackets winger was both thrilled and in disbelief.
“I have a long thread of messages from him talking about how excited he was to have a third baby, how nervous he was,” Meredith, 34, says of her husband. “And he said he couldn’t stop thinking about it when he was skating one day. He just said, ‘I cannot focus right now. I can’t believe we’re having a third.’ And he ended it with, ‘I’m very, very excited.’ So that’s something I’ve taken screenshots of and I can print off, and I want to frame that for Carter when he’s older because John added it with a little selfie of himself.”
One week after finding out Meredith was pregnant, Johnny died. Two weeks later, at his and Matthew’s memorial service, Meredith shared in her eulogy that she was pregnant.
“I just wanted everyone to know all John’s accomplishments and, first and foremost, that he was an amazing father and I was so sorry that he wasn’t here,” she says. “I wanted to shed light on that because so much was taken from him. End of the day, that was the most important thing in his life. And I’m just so sorry that he’s not able to see his kids.”
Credit: Meredith Gaudreau/Instagram
Her sister-in-law, Matthew’s wife Madeline, was also pregnant at the time, due in December 2024 with their first child. Meredith and Madeline leaned on each other to manage the grief of their husbands’ deaths, and the weight of their pregnancies.
“When I called and told her I was pregnant, she was very excited and said, ‘Congratulations!’” Meredith says of Madeline. “Obviously, she didn’t find out right until after the accident. So that’s something I remember because when people heard I was pregnant, it was upsetting to a lot of people. And she was thrilled, and it was almost that excitement in her voice — she doesn’t realize how much that did for me.”
Madeline, she says, helped Meredith “enjoy my pregnancy knowing it was my last one, and I soaked it all up. And when I went in to have Carter, I was really excited. I was beaming. I was about to meet my baby.”
Carter arrived in April 2025, looking just like his father and with the exact same measurements Johnny had at his birth — weighing 8 lbs., 3 oz., and measuring 20.5 inches long.
“When I look at Carter, I just don’t see anything but John,” Meredith says. “He is such a light. He’s so happy and smiley. Especially when he smiles, I think of John. His eyes kind of have that sparkle that reminds me of him, and he’s just the happiest baby. And it’s just a reminder — when he smiles and laughs, I have flashbacks to John.”
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In the two years since Johnny’s death, Meredith makes a point to “talk about him every day” with their three kids. “There’s things around town here where I’ll tell Noa and Johnny — and Carter, of course, but he’s just so young — ‘This was Daddy’s favorite ice cream place. He used to always get M&Ms on his ice cream.’ And then, ‘Oh, Daddy brought me here before. I have a picture of Daddy sitting on this bench,’” she says.
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“I frame those little candid pictures and I put those out. And they’re not our best photos, but I can see the kids pick them up and can kind of start putting two and two together that, okay, that’s this couch. I put those where we took the photo so they can kind of match that moment, like singing happy birthday to him at our kitchen table,” Meredith continues.
“And they know that’s Mommy and Daddy’s room and his clothes are all still in the closet, and his shoes are right on the shoe rack,” she adds. “And those little things, I try to do. And they wear his shoes, they play with his hats. And I’ll still wear some of his sweatshirts, and they know those are his.”
Credit: Christaan Felber
Meredith says she’s “kept everything” to remember Johnny, and help her kids remember their dad as they grow up.
“I have, obviously, all of our text messages. I have our wedding prep homework that we had to do in our church. I like looking at that because that was stuff that John and I wanted for our future, that we had to really sit down and discuss together. And it’s nice knowing I have that. And with Carter especially, I have to make a point to really show him how special his father was and how excited John was to have Carter,” she shares.
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