Pronger has 2 screws inserted in foot

Chris Pronger said he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, on Wednesday night when he fractured the first metatarsal in his right foot after being hit with a perfectly placed puck by Montreal's Brian Gionta.

Pronger had two screws inserted into his foot yesterday afternoon by Dr. Steven Raikin to strengthen the bone.

He is expected to miss approximately 4-to-6 weeks.

Pronger's surgery was different than Jeff Carter's last year, when he had a plate inserted into his foot instead of screws.

"I kind of remember the play," Pronger said. "I happened to be on one knee in front and the shot came and just hit me in the right spot on my foot, right on my laces on the lace holes; and I think, probably it broke because I wasn't standing on my skate or applying any pressure on my foot.  You know, it just hit me in the right spot and for whatever reason this is what happened."

Pronger said he was able to move his foot around after the surgery. He had a similar injury and surgery when he was with Anaheim.

In a conference call Saturday morning with reporters, Pronger said he was more than confident in his replacements and cohorts on the Flyers' blue line.

"It was just a matter of time; one of us was going to get hurt at some point," Pronger said. "I think this is one of the exact reasons and instances why we made the moves we did in the offseason – to have more depth through our defense corps.  When Homer [Paul Holmgren] made these moves he talked about our top four defenseman missed a total of two or four games, something silly that most teams don't go through.  At some point you're going to get injuries where you're not going to be able to play through them.t's a long stretch on last year and a lot of minutes and luck.  We got lucky last year.

"I think you've seen now, with the depth on our backend, for the most part we're rolling three sets of [defense].  I might be the high guy with like 22 or 23 minutes and the low guy might be at 17 or 18 minutes.  We're getting a pretty good roll of the bench and that only helps you when you get guys into situations and keeps them sharp.  This is an opportunity for Oskars [Bartulis] to get into the lineup and play and get back into the rhythm of playing."

Pronger gave the inkling that he would be willing to miss the All-Star Game, set for Jan. 30 in Raleigh, N.C., if that meant it would give his foot more time to heal for the grueling playoff run.

"I'm not too worried about the All-Star game," Pronger said. "Obviously four and half weeks you're not 100 percent. Everybody's going to be different, everybody's body heals differently.  We'll wait and see and see where…I've got to get checked up again on January 5th and then again two weeks after that to see how it's healing and see how it's calcifying.. I don't think there's any easy way for me to tell you when I'll be back and how it's going to heal.  I don't have a crystal ball, so it's kind of a wait-and-see approach."

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