Within two minutes of their first playoff game since Apr. of 2004, things were going according to the plan for James van Riemsdyk and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Following a Patrice Bergeron penalty, the Leafs’ top-liner was able to catch the B’s defense and goaltender Tuukka Rask out to lunch, and wasted no time in burying a backhanded power-play goal (with assists to Cody Franson and Tyler Bozak) just 1:56 into action.

Leaving the sellout crowd at the TD Garden stunned, it appeared as if the confident Toronto squad, led by goaltender James Reimer’s first career playoff start, were on pace for an early assault on a Bruins squad that finished their season with three games in four days.

They were creating chances, they were buzzing in all three zones, and they weren’t afraid of getting in the face of the “Big Bad Bruins.”

Notably, the festivities on what’d be a 32-penalty minute night for the Maple Leafs began when Toronto toughguys Frazer McLaren and Colton Orr decided to reintroduce themselves to the Boston roster (Shawn Thornton and Adam McQuaid) after the whistle just under three minutes into play. In this instance, the gloves (somehow) stayed on, but the message was sent -- the Leafs weren’t going to be bullied by Boston.

It was a quick slap in the mug to a Bruins roster that’s found themselves battling with the doldrums of a ho-hum regular season more than anybody on the ice.

It was also just what they needed.

From that point on -- with 17:39 to go in the first -- it was all Boston.

The Bruins answered with pressure and a subsequent goal from Wade Redden, good for his first even-strength playoff goal since Apr. 29, 2003, and then took the lead when Nathan Horton tipped home Redden’s power-play shot with just 12 seconds to play in the first.

Perhaps predictably, the Bruins would continue their all out assault on Reimer and company in the second with a goal from David Krejci, and a completely unseeable laser shot off the stick of Johnny Boychuk, enough to extend the Bruins’ lead out to a healthy three-goal edge. And it would be more than enough, with a scoreless final frame doing the trick for Tuukka Rask and his 19 saves en route to a Bruins win and a 1-0 series lead.

Was it the attempted toughguy act from the Leafs’ bottom-sixers that woke Boston up? They wouldn’t say such was the case, but they wouldn’t deny the ‘jump’ that the Leafs’ efforts brought to the table.

“It wasn’t like any game that we played in the season,” B’s forward Milan Lucic admitted after the victory. “I think there was a lot more intensity on the ice and also in the crowd. Even what we went through in that Buffalo game after the whole Marathon [tragedy] but still I felt like that intensity was at it’s highest that we felt all year today which that’s what makes playoffs so much fun.”

Despite the 4-1 victory, this game had its moments, and its looks that seemed to suggest that the Maple Leafs can and will hang with Boston once this one gets into the thick of things.

“I just thought we self-destructed. We had a decent start. We scored the first goal. We get ourselves on the right track, in the opposition’s building,” Toronto coach Randy Carlyle said after the loss. “I thought we had our forecheck going early in the hockey game, but then we just stopped. Again, we made some mistakes, where we started to turn the puck over, and we fed them and they took advantage of the miscues.”

But of the Leafs’ miscues, was engaging with the Bruins after every single whistle one of them?

“This is playoff hockey and two tough teams playing each other,” Claude Julien said last night. “That stuff doesn’t bother us and we’ve been on the other side of it and so on and so forth. There’s nothing whether it was message sending – whatever the case is, it doesn’t really matter because like I said I’m preoccupied with our team. I thought our team reacted well and defended ourselves when we had to and were disciplined when we had to. That’s all that matters right now, and certainly not going to get into this thing about crying about the other team and what they did and what we did. It was a good, hard fought game tonight and I’ll leave it at that.”

In a game that ended with Chris Kelly and Leo Komarov dropping the gloves well after the final whistle, the series’ tone has been undoubtedly set -- it’s gonna be rough, it’s gonna be hard-hitting for a full 60, and it’s gonna be downright nasty. Something that should benefit Boston.

As we’ve said for years now, the Bruins play at their best when the game is physical and when the other team is in their face. For Boston, it’s the proverbial cold water in the face that gets them going, and it’s what them such a dangerous squad in 2011.

But it’s also not a style that’s going to intimidating a Toronto squad willing to hit anything that moves.

“They played really physical and we played physical at times but I don’t think we necessarily played our physical style of game for the full 60 minutes,” McLaren, who finished Game 1 with two of the Leasfs’ 37 hits on the night, told a sea of reporters after the Leafs’ loss. “That’s something we need to be better at in game two.”

An additional ramp-up in the intensity in a series that’s already included a fight, message-sending, an even an alleged spear to the junk from van Riemsdyk to Boston’s Brad Marchand? Jeez, well alright.

Ference suspended for Game 2

Certainly not what the Bruins wanted a game into the playoffs, but a reality nevertheless, the club will be forced to replace second pairing defensemen Andrew Ference for Game 2.

Handed a one-game ban thanks to his elbow to the head of Toronto’s Mikhail Grabovski in the first period of Wednesday night’s affair (a hit that surprisingly went unpenalized), the suspension will force the Bruins to plug the 19-year-old Dougie Hamilton (or even Aaron Johnson) into the lineup, but that’s not worrying the Bruins’ coaching staff.

“We have lots of depth,” Julien said, adding, “I’m not worried about that.”

Despite the depth, however, the loss of the 34-year-old blue-liner is simply huge.

On top of Ference’s veteran know-how, the 12-year veteran has recorded 14 points over his last 33 playoff contests in Boston, and has become known as of those players that simply elevates his game come crunch time. On the flip-side though, this suspension will likely add Hamilton into the Bruins’ mix which of course adds another piece of the Kessel to Toronto trade into the equation.

Ah, the storyline that never (see: does) get old.

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