"Darryl Sutter dropped a disturbing nugget of news today in his press conference to address the signing of Olli Jokinen.

Centre Daymond Langkow is struggling to recover from a season-ending neck injury suffered in the spring. His status for next season is unknown.

"It's still an issue," said the Calgary Flames general manager. "We're 100 days post-injury. We thought he would be further along that he is, and he's still not.

"We're still 100 days away (from the start of the season), but it is a concern."

Back on March 21, medics wheeled Langkow off the ice in Minnesota via stretcher after taking an Ian White slap shot off the base of the neck.

From the impact of the blast, Langkow suffered what Sutter calls a "slight" fracture of the vertebrae right where the neck meets the back.

"Lanks is a friend of mine," Sutter said. "From a professional standpoint, we've got to do everything to make sure that he's able to perform or can perform and also separate that out to make sure it's not something that is very long term.

"To be quite honest, it ties big into Olli too.""