Philadelphia Flyers forward Simon Gagne will have surgery on two small hernias in his right groin and will miss the next six-to-eight weeks, general manager Paul Holmgren announced Monday.
''Simon is going to have surgery tomorrow (Tuesday) to reinforce the rectus abdominis on both sides, and at the same time he's going to look and see, laparoscopically, through his belly button, at the small hernias that we saw, and he'll repair those as well,'' Holmgren told philadelphiaflyers.com.
''We're probably looking at six-to-eight weeks before [Gagne is] ready."
Gagne was diagnosed with a double hernia last week, but has delayed making a decision on his course of action until seeing a number of specialists.
''Ater meeting with three doctors and a different opinion on a lot of things, we went right to the bottom [of it] to make sure we were making the right decision for myself, for the team and for the future, to go and do the surgery,'' Gagne told a Flyers spokesman. ''So basically now we are going to go ahead and do the surgery and after that get on a program after the surgery to make sure those types of injuries don't happen to me anymore.''
Gagne had similar surgery after 2006-07, and it apparently didn't prevent the latest injury.
Holmgren said the Flyers have no plans to recall any other players from the AHL Phantoms.