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Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford told The Raleigh News & Observer Thursday he has met with forward Tuomo Ruutu to discuss Ruutu's future with the team, and said a decision should be reached next week.

Rutherford said Ruutu, due to become an unrestricted free agent after the season ends, expressed a desire to stay with the team and in Raleigh.

"These meetings are to see where the player is at, what they think of the team, whether he likes being in the organization, those things," Rutherford said by phone from Denver, Colo. "Tuomo is a player we really like, and he said he likes being with the team. That's an important first step and we had a good meeting.

"The next hurdle may be the bigger hurdle, but at least we know we're on the same page."

The "hurdle" will be the length of the contract and the dollars involved. Ruutu, who leads the Canes with 17 goals after scoring Wednesday in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Anaheim Ducks, has a $4.4 million salary this season.

Rutherford said he did not discuss contract details with Ruutu but now would begin that process with Ruutu's agent, Bill Zito. Ruutu, who turns 29 this month, is believed to be seeking a long-term deal.

Rutherford had not negotiated a contract with a Hurricanes player during the season until this year, when he re-signed defenseman Tim Gleason to a four-year contract extension worth $16 million.

"We have now made re-signing Tuomo a priority," Rutherford said. "If we're not able to agree, both sides need to have some leeway and some options. We need to make a decision and he needs to make a decision."

Ruutu still could be traded before the NHL's Feb. 27 trade deadline. The two sides may not be able to come to an agreement on a contract that fits the needs of each. If so, it could make financial sense for both.

Rutherford said he would not put a number on the amount of teams that have inquired about acquiring Ruutu, a physical forward who can play center or the wing and has been on the Canes' top line with Eric Staal and Jiri Tlusty.

The Calgary Herald relays that Michael Cammalleri admits to battling minor insomnia on nights where the Calgary Flames lose due to lack of offence.

Case in point: Calgary’s 3-2 loss in the shootout to the Anaheim Ducks.

“Listen, if we win the hockey game, it’s a lot easier to stomach,” says Cammalleri, who came to Calgary on Jan. 31 with the rights to KHL goalie Karri Ramo and a fifth-round draft pick in a trade with Montreal for Rene Bourque, prospect Patrick Holland, and a second-round draft pick.

“I’m definitely confident the offence will come. It’s something I’ve been able to do my whole life.”

In his first 10 games as a born-again Flame — including Thursday’s 2-1 overtime loss to the Phoenix Coyotes — Cammalleri has recorded two goals and an assist for three points.

Those numbers aren’t quite what Calgary fans expect from the man who scored 39 as a Flame in 2008-09.

“I’ll keep trying to work hard on my game,” Cammalleri vowed. “I’m confident I’ll get rolling here soon.”

His boss shares that opinion.

“Yeah, he wants to score like every other player in the dressing room,” head coach Brent Sutter said. “And yet, he understands the responsibilities that you have to have at this time of year for team success.

“He’s not wavering off that to cheat to do some things that could hurt the hockey team. I’m not worried about Cammy. I’m really not.

“He’s had spurts where his game might not be at the level he would like it to be at. But at the same time, he’s been a pretty productive player for us in different areas.

“I understand we need him to score goals. But he’s had opportunities and the puck hasn’t gone in the net.

“He just has to keep pushing.”

The Columbus Dispatch indicates the NHL is working to implement a system by which it can monitor arena game clocks from its Toronto operations center and prevent any last-minute malfunctions, such as the one that cost the Blue Jackets at least a point in the standings last week in a last-second loss at the Los Angeles Kings.

“We’re going to be in a position to track how the clock is running — particularly in the last minute of each period — by watching the clock and making sure that if there is a glitch or a stoppage when play is going on, we know about it at the time,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said last night during a pregame session with reporters in Nationwide Arena.

Bettman said the league also is in the process of installing high-definition cameras in nets to help monitor games.

The enhancements are hoped to be in place by the start of the playoffs in April.

“These are all things that give us a better ability to monitor,” Bettman said.

An investigation into the pausing of the clock at the Staples Center in the final seconds of the 3-2 loss to the Kings continues, Bettman said, but it has been suspended while the arena prepares to play host to the Grammy Awards on Sunday.

“(Clock manufacturer) Daktronics, who needs to do a technical review for us, can’t do it right now because (of) the Grammys … and we don’t have access to the clock,” Bettman said. “We’re going to try and figure out exactly what happened, but we’re also — having now seen something like this for the first time — going to institute some procedures to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Kings forward Drew Doughty scored the winning goal with 0.04 of a second left on the clock. Replays showed that the clock paused for one full second with 1.8 seconds remaining.

"We flat-out stink the last two months. We stink," Wild head coach Mike Yeo, his team 5-14-5 since Dec. 13 after last night's 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, told The Minneapolis Star Tribune. "And we come in and we don't have a good enough effort from too many guys. That's concerning. ... We have too many guys that aren't ready to pay a price."

The NHL is stocked with robots, according to The Arizona Republic. Their noses are broken, their teeth are capped and their mouths are clenched in states of perpetual humility.

Every so often, the assembly line stops, and out pops a rare exception.

It happened in Phoenix in 1996, when the newly born Coyotes traded one of their automatons (Alexei Zhamnov) for Jeremy Roenick. He was a brash young star from Chicago, a slick-skating loudmouth who came to the Valley and made people care about hockey.

Some 16 years later, the article posits, he remains proof that the sport can work in the desert.

"Hockey is entertainment," Roenick said. "And I wanted to give people their money's worth. I didn't buy into the NHL mentality. I didn't want to be one of those robots."

The Coyotes will honor Roenick on Saturday, adding him to their Ring of Honor after two stints and six years of service.

Roenick is one of four American-born players to score 500 or more goals. He toiled for four other teams, wearing his heart on his sleeve wherever he dropped his bag. But in Phoenix, he was the fire-starter.

More than anyone, he was the guy who turned a Coyotes game into an event. He made the organization feel like a big-time franchise destined for a bright future.

Roenick joined Keith Tkachuk on a blue-collar, lunch-bucket team. They played in downtown Phoenix, where some of the paying customers couldn't see one of the goals, at a time when Jerry Colangelo wasn't unanimously revered by Valley sports fans.

Though Tkachuk fell out of favor with the locals following a nasty contract dispute, Roenick always was the team's greatest ambassador. His sound bites were solid gold, sometimes controversial, always opinionated. As a result, the Coyotes made the local newscasts quite frequently.

"In my career, I took a lot of pride in being a people person," Roenick said. "I wanted to be a fan-friendly player. I'm one of those guys who believed you have to give back to the community. Yes, playing a sport is very difficult. Yes, we are very few. But we're still very privileged, and we have to share with the fans."

The Republic notes that Roenick never won a Stanley Cup. In Phoenix, he never made it out of the first round of the playoffs. But his contributions never will be forgotten.

Once, the legendary Bobby Hull left the Blackhawks and landed in Winnipeg. He shook every hand and signed every autograph, lifting the profile of an entire franchise.

Roenick did the same thing for the same franchise. He dazzled on the ice, talked a great game and always remembered to interact with the fans.

More than anyone else, he made the Coyotes relevant in Arizona, an arduous task in these parts.

"That's a great satisfaction to me," Roenick said. "We did something special together. We made a lot of people happy. We entertained to the max. We did a really good job of getting people interested in the game, making the game popular, causing a stir in the Valley and doing it properly."

Nobody is saying it, but The Tampa Bay Times believes it seems clear Mattias Ohlund will not play this season.

The Lightning defenseman has not played a regular-season game because of two bum knees, is not skating, and GM Steve Yzerman acknow­ledged Thursday there is no timetable for him to do so.

Ohlund contributes, though, as an ad hoc assistant coach. Beginning with the Jan. 20-21 road trip to Dallas and Phoenix, Ohlund has watched games from the press box (with a special eye on the defense), taking notes and passing along what he observes to the coaching staff and players.

"He's a really bright hockey guy and well-respected," Yzerman said. "He's got a lot to offer to us in watching the games and watching our defensemen and being able to work with them, particularly the younger guys, about the finer points of playing the position."

"He's a good leader," coach Guy Boucher said. "So having him around is good for him and good for the team."

Ohlund, 35, who has four years left on a seven-year, $25.25 million contract, had arthroscopic surgery on both knees over the summer to clean out what the team called "loose bodies." He has not skated since mid November and declined to comment.

Email: chris.nichols@sportsnet.rogers.com

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­Chris Nichols is Sportsnet.ca's fantasy hockey writer.