DETROIT — The Red Wings will board a plane Wednesday much happier than they could have been. Their four-game losing streak is over. They scored five goals in a game for the first time in almost three weeks. The Red Wings are in third place in the Atlantic Division.

As maddingly inconsistent as this team has been, Detroit’s 5-4 win against the Boston Bruins means there are 17 teams below them in the NHL standings.

“It’s always better to get on a plane tomorrow with three of our last four points against a rival, so we’ll take that,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said. “I think we still have work to do as a team, and maybe getting out on the road will be something good for us.”

The six-game road trip starts Thursday in Columbus, and then the Red Wings head to Seattle for a game Friday, and then Vancouver Monday and then Calgary a week from now. That will be followed by games in Edmonton and Chicago.

This road trip could be their most important road trip of the season.

After beating Boston Tuesday night, Detroit is 15th in the NHL overall standings and none of their opponents on this road trip are ahead of them in the overall standings.

The Red Wings will play these six games over nine days, and when they return from Detroit they will have completed 40% of the NHL schedule. If they want to end this nine-year playoff drought, they need to come home in a playoff spot.

Need Better Road Record

“For the most part we’ve been good at home,” Detroit forward Alex DeBrincat said. “A couple of duds, but overall, we’ve been pretty good. We got to keep that up and obviously have that good road mentality for these next six games and come out strong there as well.”

The Red Wings are 5-5-1 on the road this season, and a .500 points percentage on the road is not going to get them to the postseason.

One of the NHL traditions is teams bonding on the road, working out their struggles and coming home with a fresh outlook. That obviously needs to the Red Wings’ objective. They have struggled to find any measure of consistency. Their game management has been poor, even late in the win the Red Wings made mistakes that made the game closer than it should have been.

“Been almost a month since we’ve actually really been gone,” McLellan said. “So this one’s going to be a long one. It won’t be an easy one, but I’m looking forward to it. Be a good challenge for our players.”

Rasmussen Hurt

The Red Wings are going on the trip relatively healthy. Mason Appleton is day-to-day. Michael Rasmussen was limited to 9:22 in the win by an injury suffered against Boston Tuesday.

“Ras got a double hit,” McLellan said. “I think a couple of heavy players. He was examined. He just didn’t have strength to come back. Nothing’s damaged or anything like that. So we’ll see how he is in the morning.”