DETROIT – The Detroit Red Wings’ 4-3 victory Tuesday over the Dallas Stars on Dylan Larkin’s overtime goal might have been their most exhilarating and satisfying performance this season.

It sent them into the NHL’s three-day Christmas break in first place in the Atlantic Division with 47 points.

The captain and longest-serving Red Wing reflected on the stark contrast to exactly one year earlier, when they lost 4-0 to the St. Louis Blues, were two points out of last place in the Eastern Conference and Todd McLellan replaced Derek Lalonde behind the bench three days later.

“We got booed off the ice all three periods,” Larkin said. “It was a negative place, where we were down. And I think a combination of Todd coming in and, his first practice yelling to play hockey and his intensity, his willingness to give guys opportunities and if you can play, you’re going to play. And also, some of the additions we made with (John Gibson) and shoring up some holes that we had.

“So, I think there’s a combination. But I would give Todd a lot of credit for a full year now, and I’m sure he’ll tell you it’s just a start. There’s a lot of work to be done and just wait until we get to the playoffs and at some point, we’re going to make it. It’s a whole new game and it’s a whole new learning experience.”

The Red Wings are 7-2-2 in their past 11 games, and their confidence is growing.

“We’re playing like a team,” McLellan said. “We’re making fewer mistakes, we’re resilient. You can see it tonight in the second period. We got caught a few times on the ice a little too long. We bent; we didn’t break. So that’s between the ears. The mental part of the game, we’re getting stronger, physically stronger and game management’s improving.

“Confidence goes a long way and for us to have won some of the games that we’ve won, I think it slowly stacks.”

The Red Wings face another top team coming out of the break when they visit the Carolina Hurricanes Saturday (7 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network).

“Well, to this point it’s got to feel really good for the franchise, the fans,” McLellan said. “We’re winning more than we’re losing, but again, we got a lot of runway in front of us, a lot of road work that we have to do. We’ve got to improve as a group. We talked tonight about these types of games, the one pre-Christmas, the one post- Christmas, pre-Olympic break this year, post-Olympic break, they’re not easy games to play for a lot of different reasons, not just for the Red Wings, but for all 32 teams. So, we challenged our group tonight and I thought when the game started, we were really ready to go.”

The Red Wings tied it twice in the third period on the power play. First when Emmitt Finnie scored at 3:02, and then when Larkin notched his first of the game with 4:03 remaining in regulation, on a slick between-the-skates backhand pass from James van Riemsdyk, who had opened the scoring in the first period.

When Larkin notched his 11th career OT goal (only Sergei Fedorov has more for the franchise with 12), he reached the 20-goal mark for the fifth consecutive season and seventh time in his career.

It also extended John Gibson’s winning streak to a career-high eight games. He is the first Detroit goalie to win eight in a row since Chris Osgood in 2007.

“I feel like we just keep playing no matter what the score is and that’s the sign of a good team and you got to just play the same way, shift to shift no matter what’s going on around you,” van Riemsdyk said. “We know how tight things are so it’s no time to do anything else other than get ready for the next one.”