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COLUMBUS — At a building and for a franchise known for cannon blasts after goals, the 13 minutes and 21 seconds of silence outside Nationwide Arena on Wednesday night were striking.

Those numbers represented the 13 worn by Johnny Gaudreau throughout his career, which included nine seasons with the Calgary Flames before he played the past two seasons for the Columbus Blue Jackets, and the 21 for his brother, Matthew, when he and Johnny were teammates at Boston College.

They were remembered at a moving candlelight vigil after Johnny, 31, and Matthew, 29, died Thursday when they were struck by a car while riding bicycles near their home in Salem County, New Jersey.

Fans packed the east plaza, where a shrine to the Gaudreaus has been growing since early Friday morning. A half hour before the vigil, the area was nearly full, but you couldn’t tell if you closed your eyes.

A place where fans boisterously congregate while waiting to enter the arena for Blue Jackets games was eerily quiet except for whispers and the sniffles of fans trying to contain their tears.

“You guys are not only standing by us in tough times and hockey seasons, but when it matters most,” defenseman Erik Gudbranson said. “Our hearts are shattered in a million pieces. There’s no doubt about that. John, he was an amazing teammate, an amazing friend.”

Gudbranson, captain Boone Jenner, forward Cole Sillinger and general manager Don Waddell spoke during the 35-minute ceremony, which ended just after sunset.

“This is obviously a very difficult time for all of us, each one of you (fans) included,” Waddell said. “We have a special group of people in this organization, a special group of players, and along with you, we will get through this together.”

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Prior to the vigil, fans — many in a Gaudreau Blue Jackets jersey, some in a Flames No. 13 — continued leaving mementos such as flowers, cards and a Johnny favorite: grape Gatorade.

“He was a friend, father, a husband, son and a brother, as we all got to witness,” Jenner said. “He was an amazing hockey player that played with such passion and joy every time he took the ice. He carried that same joy off the ice.

“He was such a fun guy to be around. He had that smile that could always cheer you up no matter what. He was the happiest with his wife (Meredith) and two kids, Noa and Johnny. His family meant everything to him. We are so blessed to have known him and will always remember the man he was.”

Adding to the somberness of the occasion, when master of ceremonies Bob McElligott, the Blue Jackets’ radio play-by-play voice, announced Jenner’s name, there was not the familiar “B-o-o-o-n-e” chant that has resonated around Nationwide Arena for the past decade.

Several Blue Jackets players already in Columbus for the start of training camp Sept. 20 were with their wives or girlfriends to the right of the podium.

Sillinger said he grew up an Edmonton Oilers fan but that something changed when Gaudreau joined the rival Flames full time in the 2014-15 season.

“I became an Oilers/Gaudreau fan, which was pretty oxymoronic,” he said. “My brothers and I played a lot of pond hockey in Saskatchewan. Quite often we’d be pretending to be No. 13 for the Calgary Flames.”

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Sillinger was the last to speak before candles were lit and clocks on the entrance marquees counted toward 13:21. To the left across the street, a giant video board above a parking garage showed Johnny, Matthew and their families.

Afterward, John H. McConnell II, a member of the McConnell family ownership group and grandson of the Blue Jackets founder, the late John H. McConnell, said: “The response from our city, our hockey community and beyond, has been incredible. It is a testament to the character of both John and Matthew in the many, many lives they touched.”

Then a fan started chanting “Johnny Hockey,” and others joined in before “Amazing Grace” was played on bag pipes to close the vigil.

Gudbranson, who also played with Gaudreau in Calgary during the 2021-22 season, had summed up his feelings earlier.

“On a personal note, something that I’ll very dearly miss,” he said before pausing to compose himself. “I had this little thing with John where I’d pick him up and give him a bear hug and I wouldn’t let him down until he told me he loved me. And he wouldn’t tell me for a long time.

“But I know up here today that it was because he enjoyed the hugs, and it’s just we just miss him so much. It’s wrong.”