Claude Julien is poised for a Bruins sweep in New York. (Mike Petraglia/WEEI.com)

NEW YORK — The Bruins have the look of a very confident team right now, as well they should being up 3-0 in the Eastern Conference semifinals and getting stronger and stronger with each game.

But Claude Julien knows full well he’s going to hear plenty about being up 3-0 in 2010 against the Flyers and 3-1 against the Maple Leafs last round, showing incredible difficulty in closing out in both cases.

“I think we live in the moment,” Julien said, sounding a highly philosophical tone. “You learn from the past but you live in the moment but you don’t live in the past. So, right now, we’re living in the moment. I like where our team is right now.

“The attitude, the approach and we’re certainly not looking at it the way all the people are going to look at it and try and find reasons to give New York some hope and say, ‘Look these guys have done this and these guys have had trouble doing this.’ We’re certainly not even going there. We’re looking at the present right now and the present is getting prepared to play a real good game [Thursday], kind of like we played [Tuesday].”

Julien, repeating the theme of taking nothing for granted, said a closeout of the Rangers will require an effort as good – if not better than – Tuesday’s performance in Game 3.

“I think if we don’t take the same attitude as we took [Tuesday], then we shouldn’t expect to win the hockey game,” Juilen said.

Other notes from Wednesday’s practice:

It was a light turnout for a laid-back practice on the ice as Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Zdeno Chara, Andrew Ference, Rich Peverley, David Krejci, Daniel Paille, Adam McQuaid, Johnny Boychuck, Nathan Horton and Milan Lucic all had the day off from skating. Bergeron and Marchand were among those working on their hand-eye skills with a soccer ball in the hallway outside the Bruins dressing room.

Tyler Seguin, Jaromir Jagr, Dennis Seidenberg, Wade Redden, Chris Kelly, Dougie Hamilton, Torey Krug, Jay Pandolfo, Kaspars Daugavins Aaron Johnson were among those taking part.

The Bruins skated for about 40 minutes before calling it a day.

Claude Julien said both Seidenberg and Redden are making significant progress each day and their status will be evaluated Thursday. Meanwhile, Ference (lower body), who hasn’t played since Game 5 against Toronto, is still nursing an injury that has put him on the sidelines indefinitely.

“He’s doing OK,” Julien said. “He’s improving although you haven’t seen him on the ice. Better. I haven’t talked to our trainers about his return date to the ice but I think it’s getting closer all the time.”

Dennis Seidenberg skates Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. (Mike Petraglia/WEEI.com)

NEW YORK — Dennis Seidenberg hasn’t played in a game since skating his first two shifts in Game 7 against Toronto on May 13, when he suffered a leg injury.

“There’s a chance for sure,” Seidenberg said after skating for about 40 minutes during an lightly attended skate Wednesday at Madison Square Garden. “But again you don’t want to come back too early so I think we’ll see how it feels [Thursday] and go from there.”

How did he feel?

“Better again,” he said. “Today I went a little harder in practice and felt OK. But again, it’s still day-to-day, see how it feels tomorrow and go from there.”

Considering the Bruins are up 3-0 and all three rookie defensemen – Torey Krug, Dougie Hamilton and Matt Bartkowski – are handling themselves well, there’s no sense in rushing back until he’s 100 percent, or close to it.

“It’s a little bit more comforting but at the end, you want to be back as quick as possible,” Seidenberg said. “Watching games is always the toughest part, and not being part of it. You definitely want to be back in there as soon as possible. You also want to be smart about it.

“For the team, it’s great. To see them perform the way they have, being poised with the puck, playing strong defensively is definitely something nice to have that depth coming from Providence. It’s nice to see. Everybody knew they knew how to play hockey and they were really good players in the minors. To have them come up and play with poise, playing confident hockey and just contributing offensively as well as defensively is definitely nice to see.”

Seidenberg missed time during the 2010 playoffs when he suffered a freak injury to his wrist, and had to watch as the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead to the Flyers.

“It’s always the same,” he said. “You don’t like sitting out. We talked about it a couple of years ago. It’s not fun watching games. I definitely want to be back in there and help.”

Seidenberg and Wade Redden were both on the ice Wednesday while Andrew Ference was not. Coach Claude Julien says Seidenberg and Redden are both getting closer and closer to returning.

“Every day they’re better,” Julien said. “That’s progress. To me, it goes down to making that decision when the time comes and that decision will be made tomorrow. I like the direction both of those guys are going in right now so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

Pierre McGuire

NBC Sports analyst Pierre McGuire joined Mut & Merloni on Wednesday, following the Bruins’ 2-1 victory over the Rangers in Tuesday night’s Game 3.

The Bruins controlled the first couple of minutes of the game, despite the Rangers’ desperate situation, sending an early message.

“If you’re going to start a game on home ice, you’re down 2-0, you know you’re never in trouble in a playoff series until you lose on home ice, you want to set the tone early,” McGuire said. “So, you want to go after it, you start your heavy hitters, you start Brian Boyle, you start Derek Dorsett, you start Taylor Pyatt. You start your bangers, I call them the stampeding elephants, and you’re expecting them to stampede. Well, they didn’t. In fact, Boston took the game to them. That really set the whole tempo for the game, I thought.”

McGuire said the Bruins have the upper hand because they have the Rangers questioning themselves.

“There’s three things you want to accomplish in a playoff series: concern, doubt and fear, if you’re the opponent,” McGuire said. “Right now the Rangers are clearly concerned, they clearly have doubt, and I thought last night in the third period in particular after [Daniel] Paille scored the second goal, they had fear. If you can accomplish those three characteristics in a playoff series, your chances of winning are really good. I think the Bruins have put themselves in that position right now.”

Shawn Thornton sent a message to the Rangers in the third period when he stepped in for Brad Marchand and confronted Derek Dorsett, who had been trying to goad Marchand into a penalty.

“Shawn is an emotional leader and he’s not going to burn you defensively,” McGuire said. “And he’s a tough guy. When they started challenging Marchand last night with Dorsett, you saw what happened on the offside faceoff: Marchand comes off, Thornton comes on, Dorsett gets stabilized, no more issues.”

That said, McGuire insisted Dorsett’s failure to respond physically doesn’t reflect badly on the Rangers winger.

“I don’t think he backed down,” McGuire said. “I just think at that point their team’s kind of lost some momentum. Thornton’s not going to fight him, but he’s going to tell him in his ear, whisper sweet nothings: Listen, dude, do you want to mess around? We will dance, and it won’t be fun for you. That’s all Shawn had to do.”

Following are more highlights from the conversation. To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page. For more Bruins news, visit the team page at weei.com/bruins.

On Tyler Seguin: “I still think, and I keep saying it during the shows, he’s about to break through. I see chances happening for him. He’s working his tail off. He’s trying to make things go. The fact that the Bruins didn’t get a power play last night, I think that’s a little bit tough. He’s going to have to be one of those guys who’s going to get his chance on the power play.”

On the Rangers’ ineffective power play: “Two power-play goals in 10 playoff games now, that’s not going to win you much. People will mock the Bruins power play from 2011, but the one thing they had, they had zone time. When you have zone time on a power play, you can still create momentum even though you don’t score. What happens with the Rangers when they get power plays now, they crush whatever potential momentum they might get. … The Bruins deserve a lot of credit for their penalty kill, but the Rangers power play has not been good.”McGuire said he expects the Rangers to give a good effort in Game 4 Thursday night despite their difficult situation, down 0-3.

On what he expects from the Rangers in Thursday night’s Game 4: “I think they’re going to show up and play and they’re going to grind and they’re going to compete. I’m going to stress what I said, the X-factor in the series, I said it before it started, I’ll say it again: [Gregory] Campbell, Paille, [Shawn] Thornton. The Rangers have not had an answer. They haven’t had enough depth all year. They were lucky at the trade deadline that they were able to add some more depth. But that’s been the biggest issue. They just don’t have enough depth to keep running with a real good team from Boston.”

Shawn Thornton

Bruins forward Shawn Thornton checked in with Dennis & Callahan on Wednesday morning to offer his take on Tuesday’s 2-1 victory over the Rangers that gave the Bruins a 3-0 series lead.

Thornton and his teammates on the fourth line — Daniel Paille and Gregory Campbell — came up big Tuesday, as they were on the ice for both of the Bruins’ goals.

“I’m lucky to play with those two guys,” Thornton said. “They’re not fourth-liners on a lot of other teams. I’m fortunate to have them with me.”

Thornton noted that all three fourth-liners could have signed elsewhere last offseason, but the Bruins kept the trio together.

“You’ve got to give Peter [Chiarelli] credit for having faith in us, bringing all three of us back,” he said. “We were all free agents at the end of the last season. I think I was the only one that got re-upped during the season. They paid a little money to keep all three of us around.

“I haven’t looked at the other fourth lines in the league, but we’re compensated pretty well as far as fourth-liners go. We’re getting some notoriety right now in the playoffs, but the team believed in us before this.”

A key moment in Tuesday’s game came when Thornton replaced Brad Marchand on the ice and confronted Derek Dorsett after Dorsett had been harassing Marchand.

“He’s doing his job,” Thornton said of Dorsett. “He got Marchy off the ice in the first period [on a penalty]. They’re both agitators. If they’re matching him against Marchy, he’s going to try and get under his skin and keep him off the ice as much as possible. Marchy’s probably been our best player in this series so far. He’s doing his job. I had to go out there and politely say that I wasn’t a fan of him being all over our star left winger.”

Thornton said he was ready to fight, but either way he wanted to send a message.

“I didn’t know [if Dorsett would fight],” Thornton said. “If he had wanted to, then I definitely would have obliged. I joked about being polite; I wasn’t going out there to ask him what dinner was later.”

Added Thornton: “It’s a job. I’ve been doing it for a long time. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I was happy we got to play after that, too, that it wasn’t our last shift.”

NESN Bruins analyst Barry Pederson, speaking with D&C earlier in the morning, said he thought Dorsett’s failure to stand up to Thornton sucked the energy out of the Rangers. Thornton didn’t necessarily agree.

“No, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t put the blame on him for it,” Thornton said. “I think we maybe turned it up another level. Not so much that they got the life sucked out of them.

“I don’t know how to say this without sounding cocky: If I’m asking to fight, it’s not going to be an easy fight for him, either. Not that I’m saying I could beat him up. I’m just saying it won’t be an easy fight, and that might have taken the life out of everyone, too. Or it might have gotten my team going even more. I don’t know. You can never I guess speculate on what was going to happen in different situations.”

The Rangers power play has been unsuccessful in 10 opportunities this series, including two chances Tuesday night.

“Our PK coach, Doug Houda, does a really good job preparing our guys,” Thornton said. “We actually make fun of him a little bit in the room because he’s always walking around with a laptop showing people different things. It seems like he has 15 PK meetings day. We give him a hard time.

“You know what, they’ve got some skilled guys over there. They’re getting a couple of chances, but I think our guys have been doing a really good job of reacting properly.”

Thornton does not expect the Rangers to lay down in Thursday’s Game 4.

“We’ve got to come out strong,” Thornton said. “We say it all the time: The fourth one’s the hardest one to win. There’s a reason for that. Their backs are going to be up against the wall. They’re going to want to play it one game at a time, starting with the next one. So, we’re going to have to bring everything we can in the first period, hopefully get out in front of them.”

To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page. For more Bruins news, visit the team page at weei.com/bruins.