LeClair to Have Surgery

John LeClair will undergo surgery to repair a disc in his back, the Flyers said Monday night.

LeClair met with team doctors late Monday and they informed him the quickest route to recovery would be through surgery. The left winger will likely be out six weeks.

"The best route to get back playing again would be to have surgery on my disc," LeClair said.

"I`m disappointed in one aspect in that it`s not going to be anything quick, like two or three days," he added. "But I`m happy that it`s something that can be corrected and that I can come back a hundred percent."

The Flyers are off to a slow start, 1-3-1, and LeClair would like to get back to the lineup as quickly as possible. He has been sidelined the past three games.

"It`s a tough stretch right now," he said. "We`ve had some bad bounces here and there. Hopefully we can play better but it hasn`t happened yet. We`ll be OK. The guys are confident we can turn this around."

"It`s very frustrating," said LeClair. "This is something that I thought would clear up quickly and I would be back playing by now." LeClair first experienced back problems last year. He missed two games at the tail end of the 1998-99 season and was sidelined for much of the 1999-2000 preseason.

LeClair is one of the NHL`s top goal-scorers and has been an All-Star since joining the Flyers in 1995. His 235 goals over the past five seasons are the most in the NHL during that span. Also Monday, Mark Recchi said that he passed baseline testing on the head injury he received in the Oct. 5 season opener and could be ready to play as early as Thursday against Montreal. Recchi has missed the last two games with concussion-like symptoms.

"I`ll practice with the team on Wednesday and see how I feel," said Recchi, who didn`t want to speculate on whether he received a concussion from the hit by Vancouver`s Ed Jovanovski. "I just had my bell rung. It`s been 10 days and I`m better now."

(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Author: AP