SvoNotes: Signing reunites Gaudreau, Robinson families at NHL level

SvoNotes is a weekly column by BlueJackets.com reporter Jeff Svoboda.
In the Blue Jackets home opener, the team was up 1-0 and looking for more when Eric Robinson had a golden scoring chance.
Sean Kuraly hunted down a puck behind the net while Columbus was shorthanded and hit Robinson in stride with a pass all alone in front of Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. Robinson was no more than five feet in front of the blue paint when he received the pass and fired a quick shot on Vasilevskiy, but the Lightning goalie moved over and swept the puck out of the air with his glove to deny the chance.

When Robinson got back to the bench, new (and old) teammate Johnny Gaudreau had a piece of advice -- it would have been better to fake the shot, then go against the grain and try to beat Vasilevskiy on his backhand.
But that wasn't the only time that night Robinson heard the suggestion. In fact, after the game, another Gaudreau -- the high school coach of both Johnny and Eric -- had the exact same advice.
"I saw Eric get the puck, and he just turned around real quick and fired it," Guy Gaudreau, Johnny's father, later recounted. "I said, 'The goalie was sliding across. Just one move the other way, come right back to the backhand, and you'd have a wide-open net.'
"He said, 'Johnny said that.' I said, 'John said that, but John might have done the same thing you did.'
"Getting a shot on net is never a bad thing, but sometimes you have to be a little more patient and get a better quality shot."
Guy Gaudreau is 65 years old and no longer coaching, having left his post as the leader of the Gloucester Catholic High School program in south Jersey that produced the Robinsons and Gaudreaus. But old habits never die easy, and sometimes Guy just can't help himself these days.
"My wife gets mad at me -- 'You know, he's not your player anymore,'" Guy said of his wife, Jane. "I go, 'He'll always be my player.' I still tell John things he should have done. I guess when you're a coach, you're a coach."
Gaudreau was a pretty good one, essentially establishing the Gloucester Catholic program from scratch. A member of the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame for excelling in hockey and soccer, first at North Country Union High in Newport and then Norwich University, Gaudreau is a rink rat who just seems to be most at home with the sound of steel cutting into ice and pucks clanging off boards.
The Gloucester Catholic program started in the mid-2000s and by 2010 Gaudreau had skippered it to the non-public state championship game against longtime power Delbarton School. It helped that Guy had a talented but diminutive star named Johnny and a big but raw forward named Eric on his team that year.
Having two future NHLers would make any high school team look good, but the other side wasn't short of talent, including star Kenny Agostino, who scored four goals in Delbarton's 7-2 victory and would go on to play for six different NHL teams. Gaudreau scored in the first period as Gloucester Catholic actually led 2-1, but that was it from there for the Rams.
"It was fun," Guy said looking back at the squad. "John always says to me, 'There's only one game I'd like to redo in my entire life, and it's that game.' I said, 'You can redo it 10 times, you're not going to beat them.' They were that good. They had like three or four D-I players and at least eight D-III players. They were a high-end team."
Still, it's pretty cool for the elder Gaudreau to look back. Both Johnny and his brother, Matt, have played high-level hockey, with the latter spending three seasons in the AHL. Eric is in his sixth season with the Blue Jackets, while his older brother Buddy has played in his sixth NHL season this year as well with Chicago (he even had a cameo in Calgary with Gaudreau in previous seasons).
That's a lot of talent that Guy can look back on and be proud he helped mold on its way to the top.
"If somebody would have told me then (Johnny and Eric) were going to play in the NHL and on the same team, I would have said I don't think that would happen," Guy said. "I'm betting against those odds. I'll call Vegas and put a bet on. That would have been the smart thing to do.
"But yeah, you know what's really cool? They're almost like your own kids. Both (Robinson) boys would come over and stay at my house, they played hockey at my house, they'd stay for four days at a time. We couldn't get rid of them. (It was) like they were my kids. It's pretty cool."
For Robinson, the arrival of the Gaudreaus added a bit of a family atmosphere at Nationwide Arena that he likely never could have anticipated.
"It's awesome," he said. "It's surreal to see (Guy) when you come out after the game. The home opener, his parents and my parents are all hanging out. It's like we're coming out of a high school game. To be in the NHL with a lifelong friend is pretty special."

Fixing To Stick

In his last four games with Cleveland of the AHL, Trey Fix-Wolansky had seven goals and seven assists for 14 points, shooting the 23-year-old to the top of the league scoring chart.
That earned Fix-Wolansky a recall to the Blue Jackets, and in four games with Columbus he has … zero goals and zero assists for zero points.
Welcome to the big leagues, right, kid?
Yet Fix-Wolansky hasn't been discouraged. He didn't drive down I-71 expecting to put up AHL numbers at the NHL level; he knew the minutes and opportunity simply wouldn't be the same for a rookie on an NHL team, and that's before you even get to the uptick in skill level.
The Edmonton native is still happy with how he's played, knowing his impact on games isn't just about scoring points. Sure, he wants to do that, but he also thinks the offense will come; until then, it's about doing his job and letting the game come to him.
"The points will come if you're playing the right way," he said after practice Wednesday. "I think that was the main reason why I was so hot down in the A was playing the right way and playing underneath the puck, and the offense just came. We had a good line down there. I think things were sparking really well.
"I think (my line with Jack Roslovic and Kent Johnson has) had tons of opportunities the last few games, so just keep playing the same way and I think they're going to start going in."
Fix-Wolansky has always been a scorer despite his 5-foot-7 frame, posting 102 points his final season of junior hockey then becoming a consistent producer with the Monsters as well. Over the past two seasons, he combined for a 27-32-59 line in 96 games with Cleveland, and he was at 10-12-22 before earning the recall this year.
For head coach Brad Larsen, there's still plenty of natural adjustments that have to be made as Fix-Wolansky works his way to the top.
"It's a huge step from the American League," Larsen said. "I've coached it, I've played in it and I've seen it. Sometimes it doesn't translate right away. Sometimes you feel good and you're confident, and all of a sudden the pace of the game goes up when you get here, your time and space is not there, the defenses are dialed in at this level and they're set in their gaps, so you have to work that much harder just to find your space and get open for those opportunities. I think he's been fine."
For his part, Fix-Wolansky said this season was about proving he can stick in the NHL after making a cameo at the highest level a season ago. He's already achieved a callup a quarter of the way into the season, and the possibility for more is on the table.
"I think the more experience, being older and then just being able to get a taste last year of the NHL speed and that kind of stuff, I was more prepared for this year," he said. "I wanted to come into camp this year and try to make the team. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but getting the callup, that was my main goal when I got sent back down. I'm just hoping to stick up here as long as possible and help the team win some games."

Welcome, Alums

One of the neat new additions to the CBJ landscape this season is an alumni game, with former Blue Jackets trying to get together as much as possible to put the skates back on and take a twirl at Nationwide Arena.
Last week's event in the OhioHealth Ice Haus was particularly fun because it included two fathers of CBJ players in Gaudreau as well as Mike Sillinger, the former CBJ player and NHL veteran who is the dad of Cole Sillinger. (You may have seen highlights on Bally Sports' broadcast of the Nov. 23 game.)
I hope to write more about this at a later date, but it was a lot of fun to see everyone getting after it a week ago. Jody Shelley organizes an active NHL alumni base of around 20 former skaters, mostly former Jackets, who remain in the Columbus area.
As such, the skate included such notable alums as Shelley and RJ Umberger, plus the dads who happened to be in town.
"It was cool," Gaudreau said. "I was like, 'Aww, man, these guys are all young.' I'm 65. I play men's league where you can never get a pass on your stick. These guys are putting passes on the tape. I had a couple of passes blow up my stick. But they were pretty cool guys. I had a good time. They even passed the puck to me every once in a while."