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SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) -- The Russian Rocket led the Florida Panthers to their third straight win, and their first playoff berth in three seasons.
Pavel Bure scored a pair of goals as the Panthers clinched a spot in the postseason with a 4-2 victory Saturday night over the Montreal Canadiens.
|  | | Florida's Pavel Bure gets the best of Montreal's Jeff Hackett for his first goal. |
"Pavel has had that effect many times," Florida coach Terry Murray said. "To see Pavel come down the ice and score is what we needed. It's like he was reading anything that you would put down as a gameplan."
Bure's second goal gave him and brother Valeri of the Calgary Flames 89 this season, breaking the mark for NHL brothers. Dennis and Bobby Hull had 88 in the 1968-69 season.
"It is special because you don't break NHL records every day, and especially I think I'm real lucky because it came with my brother," Bure said.
It was Florida's third consecutive win, following a stretch in which the Panthers lost three of four.
The Panthers are four points behind Washington in the Atlantic Division while ninth-place Montreal is struggling to get into the playoffs, trailing Buffalo for the final spot by one point.
"It's a relief, but obviously we want to catch Washington as our next goal and keep Ottawa below us," said Paul Laus, one of only three original Panthers players remaining from the team that advanced to the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals.
Bure leads the NHL with 54 goals, and his two against the Canadiens couldn't have come at a better time for a team needing a spark.
"Pavel played his usual -- exciting," Laus said. "Getting big goals when we needed them."
The Panthers took a 1-0 lead on Bure's first goal.
It was almost a short-handed score as Mike Wilson just left the penalty box when Bure broke free down the middle and sent a slap shot past Jeff Hackett.
Florida went up 2-0 with 1:29 left in the first when Len Barrie, claimed off waivers from Los Angeles on March 10, one-timed a Scott Mellanby pass by Hackett's left side.
Just 1:38 into the second, Bure put the Panthers up 3-0 with a power-play goal. After camping out at the edge of the crease to Hackett's left, Bure poked in a goal assisted by Ray Whitney and Viktor Kozlov.
Kozlov's assist was his 50th, breaking the team mark he shared with Robert Svehla.
It was the eighth straight game with a point for Bure, tying his second-longest stretch of the season. He has nine goals and five assists during the span.
Alex Hicks, who has missed much of the season after knee surgery, notched his first goal with the Panthers at 17:27 of the second. By then, the Panthers were well on their way to the playoffs.
"That's what we were talking about at the beginning of the season," said Bure, who hasn't played in the postseason since 1995. "That was our goal. It's great."
Montreal finally got on the board on its sixth power play as Sergei Zholtok's tallied his 24th goal at 6:29 of the third. Juha Lind added a goal with 32.1 seconds remaining.
But the Canadiens are rapidly losing ground in their attempt to play into the spring.
"Well, right now we are fighting for that last playoff spot and we are fighting to put 20 healthy guys out in the lineup," Montreal coach Alain Vigneault said. "It's been that way all year long. It's been a challenge."
For the Panthers, the challenge will be to see if they can catch the streaking Capitals.
"It's been a lot more fun this year," said Mellanby, the Panthers captain. "The last couple of years there have been some tough times because we didn't expect to take a step back as we did.
"The expectations have been pretty high and it's nice to be back and now we just got to keep going."
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NHL Scoreboard
Montreal Clubhouse
Florida Clubhouse
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Los Angeles 4
Boston 4
Washington 4
Ottawa 3
Toronto 5
New Jersey 3
Florida 4
Montreal 2
Calgary 2
Nashville 1
Vancouver 3
Edmonton 2
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Pavel Bure fires the shot past Jeff Hackett for the score.
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