The streaking Dallas Stars have won five straight games heading toward the Olympic break. The reeling St. Louis Blues have lost seven of eight.

The Central Division rivals are traveling in opposite directions ahead of their game on Wednesday night in Dallas.

“I think we want to take care of business before the long break,” said Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger, who has won his last five starts.

The Stars began their streak by defeating the visiting Blues 3-2 on Jan. 23, then again 4-3 in St. Louis four nights later.

Dallas won just three times during a 14-game span before starting their streak at the expense of St. Louis.

“I think you can see that we’ve had meetings here about we lost a bit of our edge and our physicality over the last (stretch),” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “We had it early and then when you get out to a good start and then after Christmas you think it’s going to come easy, but that’s not the way it works.

“We had to get that back and we’ve got it back … it makes a difference in our play.”

The Stars are coming off a 4-3 overtime victory over the visiting Winnipeg Jets on Monday night in a game decided by defenseman Thomas Harley’s goal.

“I think it’s great,” said Harley. “I think we’re earning our wins now, which is even better. That stretch we went through when we weren’t winning was tough. We didn’t deserve to win and now we’ve worked our way out of it, and we’re a better team now.”

Forward Matt Duchene has five goals and two assists in his last five games. Winger Jason Robertson had four goals and four assists in his last seven games.

The Blues are coming off a dispiriting 6-5 loss at Nashville on Monday night. They raced to a 5-1 lead, then buckled when the Predators began their comeback.

“Once (the Predators) scored their second goal, I didn’t feel the same amount of confidence with our players with the puck,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “We started turning pucks over that I thought we had time and space, and then it just started to snowball.

“Then after we regrouped in between periods, (the Predators) were rolling. They were feeling it, and we didn’t win enough battles to be able to gain lines and protect the lead that we had.”

On the positive side, the Blues have shown more life offensively while scoring 20 goals during their last five games. Jordan Kyrou (three goals, five assists in five games), Pavel Buchnevich (three goals, five assists in six games) and Jake Neighbours (two goals, three assists in five games) have been driving play.

But the Blues haven’t played well enough defensively to capitalize on that scoring uptick. Their collapse at Nashville represented a low point for their difficult season.

“Just learn from that as best as possible,” Blues defenseman Colton Parayko said. “It’s frustrating, obviously, to lose games, but you’ve got to learn from that and make sure that moving forward we take care of those games.”

–Field Level Media

Dailyn Swain collected team highs of 22 points and 10 rebounds to help Texas defeat South Carolina 84-75 on Tuesday night in Austin, Texas.

The Longhorns (14-9, 5-5 Southeastern Conference) led by four points at halftime before South Carolina twice leapfrogged to the front — the latest on Elijah Strong’s layoup with 14:32 left in the game. Texas went back up 50-46 before a jumper by the Gamecocks’ Meechie Johnson tied the game with 11:23 remaining.

Camden Heide’s 3-pointer on the ensuing possession put Texas back in the lead and the Longhorns slowly pulled away, building the margin to 11 points in the waning seconds while never allowing the Gamecocks closer than two points. The Longhorns finished the game by hitting five of their last six shots from the floor.

Tramon Mark added 18 points for Texas while Matas Vokietaitis and Heide had 12 each. The Longhorns earned a 40-25 edge on the glass and grabbed 17 offensive rebounds.

Johnson, a senior guard, scored a career-high 35 points for the Gamecocks (11-12, 2-8) and Strong added 12.

The Gamecocks built a 16-7 lead after a Strong putback layup with 12:32 to play in the first half. Texas responded with an 8-0 run, capped by Mark’s 3-pointer at the 10:49 mark, to cull its deficit to a point.

Swain’s jumper with 6:20 to play until halftime tied the contest 23-23 before Strong and Johnson each canned a pair of free throws to put South Carolina back on top by four. The Longhorns went in front at 28-27 after Lassina Traore’s two made shots from the charity stripe and, after a change of leads, expanded their advantage to four point after two more free throws by Traore, these with 2:03 left.

Johnson and Heide traded baskets over the final 1:14 of the half, allowing the Longhorns a 35-31 advantage at the break.

Johnson paced all scorers with 15 points by halftime. Vokietaitis led Texas with eight points over the first 20 minutes of play and Swain had seven as the Longhorns shot just 30.8% (8 of 26) from the field, compared to 44% (11 of 25) for the Gamecocks.

South Carolina took a 42-41 lead when Eli Ellis canned a 3-pointer with 15:05 to play. The lead changed hands three tims, with Texas eventually going up by four on two Swain free throws with 13:24 left.

The Gamecocks shot 55.2% in the second half (16 of 29), but only 1-for-7 from 3-point range, and they made 11 of 16 free throws. The Longhorns kept pace by making 16 of 30 in the second half (55.3%), including 3 of 7 from distance. Texas was 14 of 15 at the foul line.

–Field Level Media

Nate Ament scored 28 points, Ja’kobi Gillespie added 20 and No. 25 Tennessee rode a second-half surge to win its fourth consecutive game by defeating Ole Miss 84-66 on Tuesday night in Knoxville, Tenn.

Gillespie bounced back from a foul-plagued 11-point outing against Auburn on Saturday to surpass his team-leading season average (18.6). AJ Estrella had 12 points and nine rebounds and Bishop Boswell added 10 points and eight boards for the Volunteers (16-6, 6-3 SEC), who had a 58-41 scoring advantage in the second half.

Patton Pinkins and AJ Storr scored 15 points each, Ilias Kamardine added 11 and Eduardo Klafke had 10 for the Rebels (11-11, 3-6).

Gillespie hit a 3-pointer to start the second-half scoring, Dewayne Brown II added a three-point play shortly after, as the Vols increased their one-point halftime lead to six.

The margin reached eight before Storr made a 3-pointer to cut the Rebels’ deficit to 43-38. However, Tennessee pushed the lead to 11 with Gillespie’s 3-pointer midway through the half. Ament scored a three-point play, then added a jumper and two free throws to grow the lead to 16 and put the Vols in control.

Ole Miss coach Chris Beard was ejected after receiving two technical fouls with 6:15 remaining.

The Vols made 23 of 34 free throws and the Rebels made 13 of 21.

Estrella scored six points, Gillespie made a 3-pointer and Ament added a layup during a 9-0 run that gave the Vols a 12-5 lead. Pinkins made a 3-pointer to end the run and Malik Dia added a free throw to pull the Rebels within three points.

Gillespie and Troy Henderson responded with consecutive 3-pointers, but Klafke made a jumper and Kamardine and Pinkins made consecutive 3-pointers during an 8-0 run that got Ole Miss within 18-17.

Jaylen Carey answered with a jumper, Tennessee’s last field goal for 6:30. But the Vols didn’t relinquish the lead and Gillespie ended the drought with a 3-pointer that produced a 26-20 lead.

Storr made a jumper and converted a three-point play, pulling Ole Miss within 26-25 at halftime.

–Field Level Media