The Garden State, New Jersey, can count among its own any number of famous sons and daughters. Hoboken, of course, has an exclusive claim on Ol’ Blue Eyes, the Chairman, Frank Sinatra. The Boss, Bruce Springsteen, is a Long Branch boy. Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man ever to set foot on the moon, hails from Cedar Ridge. Three-time Oscar winner Meryl Streep is from Sunset, illusionist David Copperfield grew up in Metuchen. From Monmouth Beach, BoSox manager John Farrell. Neptune City, Danny DeVito. Newark, Shaquille O’Neal. And Carney’s Point, all 17 square miles of her, tucked into the western portion of the township of Salem? Well, Wikipedia lists two: John Gaudreau, professional hockey player. And . . . “Bruce Willis,” replies Johnny Gaudreau. “Of course I knew that. I mean, in my time, he’s been in a lot of movies. A really famous person. “I like him. I like his movies. I know my mom went to the same high school as him. “It’s kinda cool to say you have the same hometown as Bruce Willis. Everybody knows Bruce Willis. Hopefully I can meet him someday.” While Bruce is all biceps, flippant one-liners and body count, the other Carney’s notable goes about his feats of derring-do in an entirely different manner: This is the thinking man’s action hero. And thing is, wee Johnny actually does all his own stunt work. No stunt doubles. No CGI. That’ll actually be him, in the flesh, swerving centimetres away from a Dwight King pancaking or sliding ethereally past a Kevin Bieksa root-canal elbow. “Every day I’m here,” he’s saying this early afternoon after practice at the Scotiabank Saddledome, “is a like a present for me. You know, a gift I get to open. Not many people get the chance to be where I’m at today. “It’s unique. Not something I take for granted.” Johnny Gaudreau has been getting more rave reviews than Breaking Bad for a few years now. His Boston College boss, the legendary Jerry York, likens his vision to a great basketball point guard, a Larry Bird or Magic Johnson. His new skipper, Bob Hartley, gushes over the way the kid can create space. “He makes a move, or throws a fake, and two feet of space is suddenly five or 10 feet of space. This you cannot teach. This is something you’re born with.” Born to play Famously, he grew up a rink rat, hanging around the Hollydell Ice Arena in Sewell, N.J., where his dad Guy was, and still is, hockey director. Guy Gaudreau was raised with the game in his blood, too, in Beebe Plain, Vt., on a 500-acre dairy farm that actually spilled over into Quebec. “When he was two years old,” remembers pop Guy Gaudreau, “I’d bring him out and he’d just kinda putz around. I coached all the kids and they loved Skittles. Johnny was no different. So I’d tell the guy ‘Put a Skittle five feet in front of him.’ So he’d have to skate to it. He’d get there, bend over, pick it up and then skate to the next one. And the next. “Skittles were his favourite. Skittles and Mountain Dew.”

Given the genetics at play, and the half-hour proximity to Philadelphia from Carney’s Point, Gaudreau quickly developed a fondness for the Flyers, with big John LeClair and pint-sized Daniel Briere (“Playing against him the other night,” he marvels of the Flames-Avalanche pre-season tilt at the ’Dome, “was . . . weird. I found myself doing a double-take. But it was a lot of fun”) particular favourites. “My dad has always had the rink. Whenever I wanted ice, I had it. In the summers now, whenever, I can hop on the ice, bring some buddies. That’s pretty special. “My dad has meant so much to my hockey. He coached me my first 12 or 13 years of hockey and taught me everything I know. When it came down to being a coach, he was a good coach. When it came to being a father, a dad, he put the hockey stuff aside. And that’s what helped me become a better player, I think. That separation.” Guy Gaudreau tracks the substantive belief in the fulfilment of an NHL dream back to his son’s first season with the Dubuque Fighting Saints of the United States Hockey League. Bigger than his britches “With his size,” confesses dad, “I thought for sure he’d hit a wall there. But he played really, really well. He came out of his shell a bit. Challenged himself to be better.” From his office at the University of Denver, where he now pilots the Pioneers, ex-NHLer Jim Montgomery, then Dubuque coach, fondly recalls his one season tutoring Gaudreau. “He was 132 pounds then,” he laughs. “Johnny’s a monster right now compared to back then.” Listed at 5-foot-11 and 170 pounds, Montgomery spent bits of six seasons in the employ of five NHL organizations, so he understands the unique demands of being a smaller man in a world of goliaths. With merriment, he recalls Dubuque heading into Lincoln, Neb., for a game. Pre-puck-drop, the opposing coach wandered over to where the Fighting Saints were limbering up, the players kicking a soccer ball around in the hallway. Wee Johnny was, as always, involved. “After the game, the coach tells me about standing there and says: ‘I thought it was really nice, bringing your stick boy with you. Not many teams do that.’ “He didn’t realize until after Johnny had a goal and an assist during the game that it was the same kid. “He was dead serious. And then he goes: ‘After that, I didn’t know what to do. Coach my team or just stand back and watch him because I became his biggest fan that night.’ ”

Johnny Gaudreau scored 78 goals in three seasons at Boston College — an NCAA career which culminated in an 80-point campaign last season (in 40 games), which netted him the Hobey Baker Award. Since then, through his Hobey Baker-winning exploits at Boston College, the Johnny Hockey tag-line, Gaudreau’s fan-base has branched out, broadened substantially. Given his size, comparisons are inevitable. Marty St. Louis was always a bigger body type; a shooter, not a table-setter. Brian Gionta? Some similarities, yes. Theo Fleury? No, not at all. The mindset, that ferocious in-your-face attitude that drove Fleury on, was his and his alone, trademarked and copyrighted. And heaven only help Gaudreau if he attempts to replicate the stubborn bounce-back-ability of, say, the tungsten-tough Joe Mullen. He’d snap like a dry twig. Jim Montgomery, though, believes he has arrived at a pretty accurate stylistic comparison — Chicago sorcerer Patrick Kane. Both slippery, slick. Oozing subtlety along with sizzle.

“For a guy so small, Johnny has the uncanny ability of possessing the puck a lot, like Patrick Kane. All because he always throws you off balance and he reads opposing players feet and hips so well. “Like the goal he scored the other night in Calgary (versus the Avs). He knows the timing on when to cut back, when to go the other way and shoot across the grain. He doesn’t shoot the puck the hardest but he sure knows where he’s puttin’ it. “The other guy I compare him to is Pavel Datsyuk. Because he does things in a game you haven’t seen before. Whether it’s 1-on-1 or putting pucks into space. “I remember watching him at the World Juniors the year the U.S. won gold. It was a 2-on-2, and he read that his teammate — Johnny had the puck — was going beat the defenceman by a stride, almost like a quarterback timing a pass downfield. “And he flipped the puck over his own defenceman's head inside the blueline, landing it just past the red line and his teammate skated onto it and in on a breakaway. “Not many people have that kind of timing, that kind of imagination.” Calgary pride Guy Gaudreau remembers his son’s joy the day the Flames selected him 104th overall in the 2011 draft. “That, I think, gave him an extra gear. You could kinda see him thinking ‘Maybe I do have a shot.’ He was so excited to be drafted. People were saying sixth or seventh round. And Calgary took him higher. I remember him telling me ‘Dad, I want to prove to Calgary that I can play there and I’ll help them.’ ” Which is why conjecture that the reason he held out on signing in Calgary was to flee the Flames left the Gaudreaus slightly mystified. “Never once in our family did we ever, ever — not once — discuss that,” says the patriarch firmly. “Never. That’s not our family. I was born and brought up on the Canadian border. So I know hockey up there is life. I understand that. If someone offers you an NHL contact, you go play hockey. That’s how people think. But for us, his education came first, even if a lot of people didn’t believe it at the time. I think he understands how important that degree is to his mother and I. “I don’t, but my wife reads all the blog stuff and she’s like ‘No, that’s not true!’ And I’m saying ‘Just stop it. You have no control over what people say.’ The only control we have is with our family. “Calgary’s always where he wanted to be. I don’t know where the other stuff came from.”