The Sports Granola

Derian Hatcher called it the longest 15 minutes ever, sitting in the dressing room after being tossed from the game on a five-minute boarding call.

When the Flyers defenseman left the ice last night, his team had a 3-0 lead. Before his penalty expired, Montreal had scored twice.

“I told some of the players that watching that last 15 minutes was a lot more tiring and mentally exhausting,” Hatcher said.

It was the same for his teammates as the Flyers once again fell back on the magnificent effort of goalie Marty Biron (32 saves) to defeat the Canadiens, 3-2, at the Wachovia Center in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. The Flyers lead the series, two games to one, with Game 4 here tomorrow.

“I don’t think it was that hard a hit, and if I had not let up, my arms would not have gotten in front of me,” Hatcher said of his boarding call. “I shouldn’t have let up.”

The Canadiens certainly didn’t.

They got some calls in their favor again as the Flyers continue to find themselves on the wrong end of Canada’s chosen team in this series, fighting the Habs and the officials.

“In the third period, with all the penalties we took, we had no choice but to be back on our heels,” said center Danny Briere. “The guys killing the penalties did a marvelous job. There’s a lot of frustration with the way the game was reffed, but I’d rather not go there. . . . I like the way we battled. We buckled down and fought through all the adversity.”

The Flyers chased rookie goalie Carey Price after two periods, scoring three goals on just 12 shots. Backup Jaroslav Halak, making his playoff debut, faced only two shots.

But with a 3-0 lead, the Flyers again made life difficult with Hatcher’s boarding call against Francis Bouillon. Montreal used the five-minute power play to get goals from Tomas Plekanec and Saku Koivu. If not for Biron’s skill at the end, they might have lost.

“They got a couple of goals, but we still had about a minute to kill after their goals,” Biron said. “We did that, we had a big kill late in the third period, and I think that made the difference for us tonight.”

Biron has outplayed Price in the series.

“He has been our best player in this series,” coach John Stevens said of Biron. “We probably felt going in that he would have to be. That win tonight to me was a win on desperation, especially at the end there, and I think we need to combine that desperation with better execution, and it will make the job a lot easier.

“I would like to see us get the lead, keep the lead, and pull away as opposed to making it that exciting.”

The Flyers also had a major scare: R.J. Umberger, who also scored, took a hip check from Plekanec in his sore left knee in the third period and was helped off the ice. He returned.

“He stuck his hip out,” said an angry Umberger. “It’s a long series, and we know who it was. The [knee] brace saved me.”

The Flyers did yeoman’s work defensively on the Canadiens, using their sticks the entire way to block 20 shots while killing off six of eight power plays, including a five-on-three midway into the opening period.

Of course, it helped that Montreal’s Christopher Higgins muffed a pass from Alex Kovalev with an open left side of the net staring at him. Then Biron made a glove save on Mark Streit, and Andrei Markov nailed the post.

“Unfortunately for us, we’ve got guys that both kill penalties and play the power play,” Stevens said. “It’s pretty taxing when they have to play that many minutes, and you have guys like Danny [Briere] and Vinny [Prospal] who don’t get on the ice enough.”

It was a 0-0 affair until Scottie Upshall scored 7 minutes, 4 seconds into the second period on an extended shift. Coming back into the Habs’ zone a third time, Upshall took a drop pass from Joffrey Lupul in the right circle, then used rookie defenseman Ryan O’Byrne as a screen on Price before beating him. It was Upshall’s second goal of the playoffs.

Lupul “made a great play carrying the puck up the ice with a lot of speed,” Upshall said. “He chipped it outside and carried his speed through the middle, and I used him and then their D-man as a screen and made a good shot.”

The Flyers got a shorthanded goal from Mike Richards at 15:12, and then Umberger got his fifth goal of the playoffs, and fourth of the series, making it 3-0.

“All year you fight for them, and right now the puck is bouncing, and I’m in the right spot,” Umberger said.