The 25-year-old forward and his teammates spent the day swinging together to crush it out of the park.
The Flames and Boston Bruins, here to start training camp and play two preseason games, were forced to cancel their practices Thursday because their equipment was being held in customs at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport.
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"First day of camp you want to get on the ice with your new teammates, your new coaches and staff, but it's the way it goes sometimes," Gaudreau said.
"No big deal. ... Try to use it to our advantage."
The bags cleared around 3:30 p.m. CST (China Standard Time), but by then players were doing workouts in their respective hotel fitness centers.
The teams are scheduled to practice at Universiade Sports Center on Friday, with Calgary going on at 10 a.m. CST and the Bruins at 12:30 p.m. The first of two preseason games between the Bruins and Flames is at Universiade Sports Center on Saturday (2:30 a.m. ET; NHLN, SN).
"It's a day that we're missing skating together, but you're still doing things with your teammates, walking around the city, getting to know guys, hanging out and doing little things, which is important because we do have a lot of new faces," Gaudreau said. "You need to build some chemistry with those guys and get comfortable with those guys before you start playing with them. We're not using it as just a day off. We're doing some things together to make the most of it."
The Flames are in a different position from the Bruins in that most of the players expected to be on their opening-night roster are here, including defenseman Noah Hanifin and forwards Elias Lindholm, James Neal and Derek Ryan, all of whom are new to the team.
Boston is missing a few key players, among them center Patrice Bergeron, who is recovering from offseason groin surgery; center David Krejci, because of a visa issue; defenseman Zdeno Chara, because of body maintenance; and defenseman Torey Krug, who is recovering from a broken ankle sustained during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It instead brought a lot of younger players who are expected to fight for roster spots, including forwards Ryan Donato, 22; Trent Frederic, 20; Jakob Forsbacka Karlsson, 21; and Jack Studnicka, 19.
The Bruins missing a practice, especially the first one here, eliminates a useful day of evaluation.
It's similar for Calgary, especially because it would have been coach Bill Peters' first practice, but not to the same degree, which allows the Flames to put a positive spin on the situation.
"There is a lot of newness here with new coaches and a lot of new players," Calgary general manager Brad Treliving said. "So what we want to get out of it is the work, a foundation put in for our team, but also a real good understanding of who everybody is. The players get to know the coach, the coach gets to know the players and the players get to know each other. It's not just holding hands, singing Kumbaya, team-building stuff. It's building a little bit of chemistry, building a team, quite frankly."
They're having fun doing it.
Flames defenseman Michael Stone said the players flocked to the hotel gym after practice was canceled Thursday, shocking other guests who were in for an afternoon workout.
"I think we scared a few people cruising in there because there was a lot of us," he said.
They also ate all three meals together, and some of the players ventured out of the hotel to walk around the city, including a trip to Wongtee Plaza, a mall adjacent to the team's hotel in downtown Shenzhen.
"The way you've got to look at it here is it should be that you're close right off the get-go and you should have a good start off the get-go because of that," Stone said. "Whether that happens or not is still unknown, but that's the whole thinking behind it. … You try to come together as a group and I think we've done a good job of trying to stay positive here with things. I think guys are. I'm not sure what guys expected coming here, but I am very impressed with how things have gone other than the curveballs that we've been thrown."
