Sharpen Up: April 7, 2022 | Road trip begins tonight in Carolina

The Buffalo Sabres open up a tough four-game road trip tonight against the Metropolitan Division-leading Carolina Hurricanes tonight.
Faceoff is at 7:30 p.m. on ESPN+ and Hulu. A subscription to either streaming service is required to watch. Dan Dunleavy and Rob Ray will have the call on WGR 550.
The road trip continues tomorrow night against the Florida Panthers. After that, the team will head to Tampa on Sunday and Toronto on Tuesday. Their next home game is on March 14 against St. Louis.
Here's what you need to know.

Yesterday's practice

From the Practice Report:
Kyle Okposo usually sees each season as its own entity, with little carryover from year to year.
This one, he says, feels different.
"It just feels like we're planting the roots a little bit deeper this year," Okposo said Wednesday. "… I haven't talked about this with the guys but, like, I don't want the year to end. It's been so much fun. I have a feeling that a lot of the guys in that room feel the same way. We just want this to continue and we want this to keep going. We've felt that way for a while.
"There's no, 'Let's just make it to the end and just ride this thing out, maybe get a couple wins.' It's go-time every day. That's a fun feeling to have. I think the way that we're building kind of the relationships and the culture here I think is going to be what carries over."

The Sabres improved to 10-4-3 since the beginning of March with their comeback win over the Carolina Hurricanes at KeyBank Center on Tuesday. Seven of those victories came against teams occupying playoff spots, including the Metropolitan Division-leading Hurricanes.
They have an opportunity to keep that momentum going over the final 11 games of the season, beginning with another tough slate on the road. The Sabres open a four-game road trip with a rematch in Carolina on Thursday, then makes stops in Florida, Tampa, and Toronto.
Those are four of the top five teams in the Eastern Conference in terms of points percentage (the other being the New York Rangers, who rank fourth).
"It's a stretch here where we play a lot of top teams in the league, but I think we've kind of showed we can beat any team in this league and we know we can beat any team in this league," Dylan Cozens said.
"So, I think we just kind of look at every team in the same way. It's another to just go out there and outwork them, and I think if we do that, we'll be successful. Just keeping it simple and having fun."
Read the full story here.

Tonight's matchup

Courtesy of @SabresPR:
• Tonight's game wraps up Buffalo's second of three home-and-home sets this season, which began Tuesday night with a 4-2 win in Buffalo.
• The Sabres have played in 170 previous home-and-home series in franchise history, going 94-51-25 (.626) in the home games and 59- 81-30 (.435) in the road games in the previous series.
• The team is 74-67-29 (.521) all-time in the first game of the previous series and 79-65-26 (.541) in the second.
• Buffalo's points breakdown in these previous series is as follows: four points (32), three points (26), two points (68), one point (18), zero points (26).
• Mattias Samuelsson has six assists and a plus-8 rating in his last 12 games, averaging 21:04 of ice time per game during that span.
• Since making his season debut on Jan. 17, Samuelsson ranks among the NHL's rookie leaders in TOI/GP (8th, 19:29), SH TOI/GP (T-4th, 2:12), hits (7th, 68) and blocked shots (6th, 49).

• Victor Olofsson has recorded nine points (5+4) in his last nine games and has tallied multi-point games in three of those contests.
• The Sabres are 9-0-0 this season when Olofsson notches a multi-point performance.
• Jeff Skinner has 10 points (6+4) in his last nine games and has tallied at least a point in eight of those nine contests.
• Skinner has at least a point in each of his six career games against his former club since joining the Sabres in 2018-19, tallying eight points (6+2) during that span.
• In his last six starts, Craig Anderson has a record of 4-0-2

Frozen Four preview

Four Buffalo Sabres prospects are vying for a national championship, and if all goes well, they could all be in the national championship game on Saturday.
Tonight the Frozen Four in Boston gets underway as Owen Power, Erik Portillo and the Michigan Wolverines play Denver at 5 p.m. on ESPN2
Then at around 8:30 p.m. on ESPNU, Ryan Johnson, Aaron Huglen and the Minnesota Golden Gophers face off against Minnesota State. .
Click here for a full preview.

Today in Sabres history

1974: Rick Martin becomes first Sabre to score at least 50 goals in a season with a hat trick that pushed his total to 52 in the final game of the season, a 5-2 win vs. St. Louis.