Chris Pronger to have surgery, miss 4-6 weeks

It was all going so well for the Flyers, who sit atop the NHL with 47 points. They got some bad news today, though, as the team learned the fate of defenseman Chris Pronger, who injured his right foot against the Canadiens on Wednesday: he has a broken foot that will require surgery and cause him to miss 4 to 6 weeks.

Luckily for the Flyers, they have one of the deepest group of defensemen in the league. With Pronger out for at least a month, 7th d-man Oskars Bartulis will step into the lineup. While the Flyers will miss their best defenseman, they can give more minutes to guys like Andrej Mezsaros and Matt Carle and there shouldn't be that much of a drop-off.

While injuries to star players are never a good thing, it's better that Pronger suffers an injury like this now rather than later in the season. With the timetable given, Pronger will return sometime in late January and will still have plenty of time to get up to full strength for the playoffs, which start in April. The Flyers also have a long layoff in late December, so Pronger won't even miss more than 15 games or so. The defense should be able to hold down the fort until the big man returns.