BOSTON – Not much separated the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference playoff series Friday – one outstanding play by Pavel Datsyuk was the difference.

But because there was so much separation between the teams during the regular season – 24 points – the Red Wings' 1-0 victory was quite an eye-opener.

It showed how good the Red Wings can be when they’re structured and disciplined. And it exposed some of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Bruins’ vulnerabilities.

Game 2 is Sunday afternoon at TD Garden (3 p.m., NBC), and the pressure to adjust is on the bigger, slower Bruins.

“They’re going to ratchet it up and we’re going to have to answer,” Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard, who made 25 saves, said. “It’s just part of the playoffs.”

The Red Wings want to continue using their speed and quick puck movement to break out of their zone fast and efficiently. They also want to continue limiting penalties (they had just one, Boston had two) to keep the Bruins’ potent power play off the ice as much as possible.

“Obviously, we don’t want to put ourselves in position of being down 0-2,” Bruins forward Milan Lucic said. “It makes tomorrow’s game much more important for us. But we don’t want to put too much pressure on ourselves where we can’t control our emotions and play our game.”

Lucic couldn't control his emotions when he speared Danny DeKeyser in the groin from behind near the end of the second period. Officials missed it and the NHL gave him only a wrist slap ($5,000 fine).

The Bruins tried to goad the Red Wings into taking retaliatory penalties, but they wouldn’t bite.

“(Tomas) Jurco could have had a penalty for (using his) free hand; they could have had … well, I mean, they could have had a number of penalties,” Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “But they are what they are.

“I’m not interested in the referees solving any problems. I think the players are out there deciding who wins and I think that’s good. I thought the game was officiated just fine and I thought both teams tried to be as disciplined as they could.”

Said Howard: “We’ve got to keep our head out there, keep our cool, because they seem to thrive off of that. They like to get in those scrums after whistles and we just got to remember whistle-to-whistle and just skate away.”

Babcock anticipates more scoring chances for both sides – each team had only nine by the Red Wings’ count.

Detroit has not allowed a goal in eight periods, a span of 161:36, dating back to Jiri Tlusty’s goal at 18:24 of the first period in Carolina’s 2-1 victory on April 11.

The key, in addition to strong goaltending, has been the defense’s ability to move the puck and limit turnovers.

“Obviously, they’re going to get way better,” Detroit’s Brendan Smith said. “We have to up our game and be ready for them.

“You’ll see the next game. It might be a little bit faster; there will probably be more hits.”

The Red Wings won’t out-hit the Bruins, but they must continue to out-skate them.

“That’s the only way for us to have success against this team is to really use our speed as much as we can, and I thought for stretches of the game we did a pretty good job of that,” Niklas Kronwall said.

Boston, which ranked third in the league in goals per game, is looking to spend more time in the offensive zone by cycling, grinding, wearing on the defense and getting second opportunities.

“Just got to do a better job of playing our game and establishing more time in the offensive zone,” Lucic said. “They played their system the exact way we were expecting. We’ve got to find holes in their game, create more scoring chances and get some by Jimmy Howard.”

Said Bruins forward Jarome Iginla: “There are some adjustments we can make and things that we can do better as far as skating and playing with the puck a bit more. We’re a really good puck-possession team. We would like to tilt it back in our favor.”