The Vancouver Canucks arrived at the Garden on Thursday with the well-earned status of a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

The Bruins – and, yes, their fair share of good luck – made their guests look like pretenders.

In a much-anticipated matchup of the top team in the NHL (Vancouver) and second-place team (Boston), the B’s scored in the first minute of the game and never looked back, beating the Canucks 4-0.

Linus Ullmark made the saves when he had to, but he wasn’t overly taxed in a 17-save shutout, his first of the season.

There was some hope there would be some of the old Boston-Vancouver fireworks of the previous decade when the teams staged one of the great bad blood Stanley Cup Finals in 2011. But, save for some early fang flashes, this one was over early.

The Bruins have been struggling on the penalty kill lately, but it was the PK that sent them on their way against the Canucks as it staked the B’s to a 2-0 first period lead.

Fresh off a bad performance against the Calgary Flames, the game very briefly had that same uh-oh feeling on the opening shift when Dakota Joshua got behind Parker Wotherspoon for a breakaway. Jakub Lauko caught up to him and took an infraction – the B’s were fortunate Joshua wasn’t awarded a penalty shot – and Lauko went to the box just 17 seconds into the game.

But you can put that in the “good penalty” file, because the B’s scored their first shorty of the game 15 seconds later. Charlie Coyle picked off a pass along the right wall in the Vancouver zone and put the puck on net. Brad Marchand got the rebound off Thatcher Demko’s pad and lifted it over the former Boston College netminder. That was Marchand’s 25th of the season and 35th career shorthanded goal, putting him in the top 10 of the NHL all-time shorthanded goalscorers.

Marchand and the Canucks’ J.T. Miller looked like they wanted to bring back the animosity of 2011 all over again. First, the two players ran into each other when going to their respective benches. After some pushing and shoving, both were sent off for roughing. Miller later took an interference penalty on a big hit on Hampus Lindholm when the puck was nowhere near him.

But that’s where any meaningful hostilities ended.

The B’s didn’t make Miller pay for that on the power play. But when David Pastrnak took an offensive zone tripping penalty, the B’s penalty kill struck again at 15:37. This time, Coyle sprung Vancouver-area native Danton Heinen for a partial breakaway. Heinen used his body to fend off Elias Pettersson, moved to his forehand and roofed it over Demko’s glove arm for his 10th of the season.

The B’s held a 11-4 shot advantage in the first.

With some good fortune, the B’s doubled the lead just 49 seconds into the second period.

The first one was an ultimate fluky goal. David Pastrnak loaded up for slapper but his stick exploded on contact. The puck pinballed around the slot area, hitting Morgan Geekie’s stick and then an off-balance Tyler Myers knocked it into his own net 34 seconds into the period. Geekie was credited with his ninth of the season.

Then on the next shift, James van Riemsdyk sent Pavel Zacha in alone and Zacha notched his 12th of the season.

Eventually, the Canucks pushed back a little bit. On another Vancouver power play, Linus Ullmark snatched a Miller tip that appeared destined for the upper corner. Later, Ullmark was the beneficiary of some good bounces, once when a shot went between his pads and squirted wide and another time when it when couldn’t locate a loose puck but Vancouver could not jam it home before he found it.

In the third period, the B’s never gave the Canucks a sniff.