Caught up in the glow of a profitable trip to California, Dylan Larkin admitted what the Detroit Red Wings would not say two weeks earlier.

"I feel like we felt sorry for ourselves for a little bit there, before Christmas, with the schedule and injuries," the team's captain said after a 3-0 leisurely paced sojourn on the west coast. "I think it’s just managing the ups and downs in a long season. We had three big wins. We’ve got a great feeling in here and guys are bought into what we want to do before the All-Star break.

"It’s a good feeling in here and we need to build off that going home."

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN': Red Wings stick around for one more practice after 'huge trip'

First and foremost, that focus is on extending a three-game winning streak when the Wings host Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.

After winning just four times in 12 games between Dec. 2-23, the Wings have won four of their last five games to improve their record to 20-16-4. They were scheduled to stay the night in Anaheim after the 3-2 victory over the Ducks, practice Monday morning and then fly home, enabling Tuesday to be a day off.

The Oilers kick off a challenging stretch that continues with a home game Saturday against the Los Angeles Kings (the Wings outlasted them in a shootout, 4-3, on Thursday), and the next night, the Wings are at the Toronto Maple Leafs, one of the teams the Wings need to catch to rise in the Atlantic Division race. From there, the Wings play at the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes.

Basically, of the 10 games standing between the Wings and the All-Star/winter break, eight of the opponents are in the playoff picture, one is the Tampa Bay Lightning, and one is the Ottawa Senators, who beat up the Wings when the team met Dec. 9 in Detroit.

The goaltending of Alex Lyon and both special teams have been key to the Wings' resurgence, but so has a schedule that has had room for practices after the pell-mell pace of December.

"That’s huge — you need to practice and work on things," Michael Rasmussen said after scoring the winning goal against the Ducks. "Some of our game was slipping a little bit there, so I think we’ve worked really hard in practice and consistently tried to get better. It’s a group that really cares and wants to get better, so it’s big."

Sunday marked the first time the Wings won this season without needing to score four goals. More importantly, the Wings turned a 2-2, third-period game in their favor — something they were unable to do against the Bruins, Nashville Predators and New Jersey Devils over the past two weeks.

"We went through that stretch where our three most recent losses we were 2-2 in the third in all of them.," coach Derek Lalonde said. "We’ve flipped those games of late and won four of five and three on the road."

Contact Helene St. James at hstjames@freepress.com. Follow her @helenestjames.

Read more on the Detroit Red Wings and sign up for our Red Wings newsletter. Her latest book, “On the Clock: Behind the Scenes with the Detroit Red Wings at the NHL Draft,” is available from  Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Triumph Books. Personalized copies available via her e-mail.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Detroit Red Wings went from 'sorry for ourselves' to great feeling