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Saturday, Jan. 22 7:30pm ET
Bure's 301st goal wins game

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SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) -- Although Pavel Bure's first goal was the milestone, it was his second that caused the celebration.

Pavel Bure
Pavel Bure said No. 300 was nice, but it was the next one he'll remember.

Bure scored the 300th goal of his career, and added his 301st in overtime as the Florida Panthers beat the Boston Bruins 4-3 Saturday night.

Bure, whose 34 goals tie him with Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr for the NHL lead, rebounded a shot by Viktor Kozlov 1:31 into overtime to score his 301st goal. Earlier in the game, Bure become the seventh-fastest player in NHL history to score 300 goals.

"I was just looking for Pavel," Kozlov said. "I just shot to the net and Pavel scored. It was so simple."

Simple and successful.

"The overtime goal, that was just a huge individual effort by Kozlov," Panthers coach Terry Murray said. "He's got some world-class players on him on that particular play. He takes it to the net. Pavel is finding his spot as he normally does, around the net, looking for something."

The puck glanced off goalie Byron Dafoe and defenseman Don Sweeney before coming back to Bure, who buried it.

"It feels pretty good, but the big milestone in the NHL is 500, so I have a long way to go," Bure said. "(No.) 301 I'll probably remember for a long time."

Kozlov, who assisted on both of Bure's goals, deserved a lot of the credit for the game-winner according to Bure.

"He played well the whole game," Bure said. "The last goal, he was carrying the puck for 30 seconds. I guess (the Bruins) didn't know what to do because they couldn't get the puck out of him."

Florida, 6-1-1 in its last eight, ended a two-game winless streak and stopped Boston's five-game unbeaten streak.

Bure's 300th goal gave the Panthers a 2-1 lead at 3:47 of the second. He scored when he knocked in the puck from just in front of the crease past Dafoe.

His 34 goals also set a team single-season record for goals, breaking a tie with Ray Whitney (1997-98) and Scott Mellanby (1995-96). Florida is 20-1-2 this season when Bure scores.

"It's a big accomplishment for him," Whitney said. "Anyone who gets 300 goals nowadays is someone special. Even better, he got 301 for us."

The game-winner was his eighth as a Panther -- breaking the mark held by Johan Garpenlov and Ray Sheppard.

The Panthers, playing their seventh game in 11 days, took a 1-0 lead at 16:12 of the first on Whitney's 20th goal. Bure broke free down the center of the ice and slid the puck to Whitney, who buried it from the left circle after Dafoe came up in the crease.

"Well, we tried to keep it in there and it bounces out and you know you get two on one with Bure and Whitney," Bruins coach Pat Burns said. "It's pretty scary."

Four goals were scored in a 2:09 span in the second to give Boston a 3-2 lead.

The Bruins tied it 1-1 on a shot by Marty McSorley that went over goalie Mike Vernon's left hand.

After Bure gave the Panthers a 2-1 lead, Steve Heinze and Landon Wilson scored goals 25 seconds apart to put the Bruins up 3-2. Wilson's goal broke a 27-game scoreless streak dating to April 17, 1999.

Mark Parrish tied the game at 3 at 12:19 of the second off a feed from Whitney.

The game was played before 18,423 fans at the National Car Rental Center, Florida's largest home crowd of the season. The Panthers had lost four of their previous five at home against the Bruins.

"I was looking for (Bure) the whole time," Kozlov said of the final rush to the goal. "It was a very big win for us, because this is a conference game. It was a very big two points for us."

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