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It was an emotional night in Columbus as the Blue Jackets played their first regular season home game since the death of Johnny Gaudreau, and it had to have been a roller coaster for one of Gaudreau’s best friends and former teammates, Sean Monahan.

Monahan and Gaudreau played together in Columbus, with Monahan signing a deal to play in Columbus just this past offseason. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance to play alongside his best friend while wearing a Blue Jackets sweater.

Monahan was part of the pregame tribute to Gaudreau, standing with Meredith Gaudreau and holding one of their children while a banner honoring his late friend was raised to the rafters.

Monahan also took the game’s opening faceoff which turned into an emotional tribute to Gaudreau as the Blue Jackets left his spot on the wing open. The ref dropped the puck and Monahan won the draw over to Florida Panthers forward Sam Bennett — who he and Gaudreau played with in Calgary — who moved the puck into Gaudreau’s spot.

There was still a game to be played after the emotional tributes, and you could tell that Monahan really wanted to get one on the board for his pal Johnny Hockey.

He had one of the game’s first scoring chances and failed to convert, however, in the second period, Monahan went hard to the net to dig for a loose puck. I don’t think that there was any way you could clear him out of the goal mouth until that piece of vulcanized rubber was in the back of the net.

And he made it happen. He hammered it past Panthers goalie Spencer Knights and celebrated by pointing to the banner honoring his pal.

Man, what a moment.

That was a big goal as it put the Jackets up 2-1, however, the Panthers answered quickly to tie the game and then added another to take a 3-2 lead into the second intermission.