BOSTON — In what was supposed to be a fun return to the days of the great Bruins-Canadiens rivalry, only one team showed up on time on Thursday night. And it wasn’t the Bruins.

The Habs scored quickly and, despite the B’s holding an advantage in play for long stretches, Montreal gashed them with opportunistic scoring to cruise to a 5-2 victory at the Garden. It wasn’t that close as the Habs raced out to 5-0 lead by the second period.

That snapped the B’s home winning streak at seven games while the Habs stretched their point streak 12 games as they leapfrogged the B’s in the Atlantic Division standings.

Jeremy Swayman has been their best player all season but this was not his best night. He gave up four goals on 17 shots before being pulled in the second period and he would have liked a couple of those goals back. Meanwhile at the other end, Habs’ goalie and former Boston College Eagle Jacob Fowler (30 saves) was excellent when he needed to be.

In the first game of the season between the rivals, the flavor was a little different with both teams eschewing their classic uniforms to their Hometown Remix jerseys.

But the first period looked familiar for many long-time Bruins fans, who had for so many years seen the speedy Habs skate around the B’s. Montreal jumped all over the Bruins early, putting up two goals on the first 8:37 and they took the 2-0 lead into the first intermission.

Kirby Dach got the Habs on the board at 2:34 when he scored on a wraparound. He skated around Mikey Eyssimont out high, took it behind the net and then beat Jeremy Swayman to the far post, shooting it home through Charlie McAvoy.

They doubled the lead on a rebound goal from Josh Anderson. Defenseman Mike Matheson, returning from injury and playing his first game since Oct. 27, threw a shot toward the net that Jake Evans tipped. Swayman did well to stop it but Anderson sneaked in behind Mason Lohrei to pop home the rebound.

The B’s, outshot 14-11 in the first, did have some opportunities. The best one came when Fowler was caught out of the net and JJ Peterka fed Pavel Zacha out front. But with a lot of open net behind him, Fowler was able to slide back to make a pad save in Zacha.

It really felt like some bad old times at the start of the second. The Bruins dominated territorially in the first four minutes of the period, hemming the Canadiens in their end on consecutive shifts. Fowler wasn’t overly taxed as the Habs played fairly well defensively. Frederic Brunet moved down from his point position and had his shot blocked. Anderson was then able to spring Evans for a breakaway as Lohrei was spread out wide. With Lohrei in futile pursuit, Evans was able to slip a backhander between the pads of Swayman for a 3-0 bulge at 4:24.

There was a lot of hockey left to be played but, with the way Fowler had looked both on this night and coming into the game (8-1-2, 2.14, .925), it didn’t look like this was going to be the B’s night.

The hits kept coming.

With the B’s pressing again, David Pastrnak lost the puck out high in the offensive zone and Cole Caufield took off on a clean breakaway. Wrong guy to give that, too. The diminutive sniper beat Swayman with the wrister at 8:14 and that was it for Swayman for the net. Michael DiPietro went in for the mop-up duty.

At that point, the B’s were completely discombobulated. And when Philip Danault beat DiPietro with a one-timer at 14:15, you could hear even hear a faint ‘Ole! Ole! Ole!’ coming from the Habs fans who journeyed south.

The B’s averted their first shutout loss of the season when Elias Lindholm fed Casey Mittelstadt on a 2-on-1 for Mittelstadt’s sixth of the year at 14:53.

But the mountain they faced in the third period was massive but they put their best foot forward when Mittelstadt scored his second of the game off a rebound just 53 seconds into the period.

But there would be no miracle comeback.

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