By Frank Servalli, philly.com, For Ryan Parent, the last 2 months have been a tough haul.

What started out as a seemingly minor ache for the Flyers' youngest defenseman will culminate today with arthroscopic surgery at Lankenau Hospital.

The Daily News first reported on Jan. 4 that a herniated disc in his back may require surgery. Parent's lower back started giving him trouble in juniors 3 years ago when he missed 23 games with the Guelph Storm in the OHL because of a bulging disc.

The Flyers knew about the injury when they acquired the former first-round pick from Nashville in the Peter Forsberg trade in February 2007, but Parent didn't have any more problems with it until this season.

"I had a similar injury before, but my back hadn't bothered me up until about 2 months ago," Parent said. "This time, it started out as a backache and then it just got worse."

Parent has not skated with the Flyers since Dec. 26, when his flare-up was so bad that it caused him to be a late scratch from their post-holiday game in Carolina. Parent has missed the last 15 games; he posted two assists as a minus-5 in 28 games.

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RYAN PARENT STORM BIO… Selected by the Storm with the 8th overall choice in the 2003 OHL Priority Selection, Parent went on to become one of the top ‘shutdown’ defenceman in team history… the Sioux Lookout native was the club’s Rookie of the Year in 2003/04 and Top Defenceman in 2005/06… Parent was drafted in the 1st round of the NHL Entry Draft by the Nashville Predators… A two-time World Junior gold medalist with Team Canada.