After six goals and eight points in four pre-season games, it looked like Pierre-Olivier Morin was ready to light up the Elite League for the Belfast Giants. That is until injury intervened.
Unquestionably the Giants’ hottest goal scorer in their exhibition slate, the 33-year-old looked dynamic centring a line with Jordan Kawaguchi and Kyle Osterberg. Between them, the trio put up 21 points as a line, with Morin the deadly finisher but, just as the momentum was building, it came crashing down.
An accidental collision with a team-mate in the Giants’ season opener at the Dundee Stars saw Morin sit out the next five games through injury — a frustrating way to start life with his new team.
He tried to come back a week early, travelling over for back-to-back games against Manchester and Sheffield and taking warm-ups in both but ultimately not dressing for the games themselves, so it was a relief when Morin finally got the all-clear in last Saturday’s win over the Cardiff Devils and it was even more of a relief when he finally broke his goal duck on Wednesday at the Fife Flyers.
“It’s always tough being out for three or four weeks. You want to come back right away and help the team win,” admits the Quebec native, who scored twice in a 7-0 rout.
“It was tough because I felt as training camp went on, I found my rhythm. As a line, we had more success together with every game. I was excited to get the season going.
“My first game against Cardiff was more about getting back into game shape, re-finding that rhythm. Wednesday was my second game in a short amount of time, so personally having three games this week is what I was hoping for because it helps find the chemistry with the line-mates again.”
There was no lack of chemistry in Fife as the Giants swatted aside a short-benched Flyers side, scoring seven goals on the road for the third time this season already. But, despite the offensive blitz, Morin insists they are still targeting improvements on that performance.
“There’s always room for improvement, it’s still very early in the season,” says the Canadian.
“In Fife, we gave up more shots than we wanted. We have a lot of depth this season and we can create a lot of offense, forwards and defencemen, but if we look at the whole season then we need to get a solid game defensively, too.
“We can’t complain so far because we’ve had some good results but, as a team, when you want to have success in the long run, you need to keep improving in every aspect of the game.
“Right now, we’ve been talking about how in some games we’re giving up too many shots, but we’ve reacted well and our goalies are making big saves for us.”
This could be a big weekend for the Giants as they face the Glasgow Clan in a home-home double-header, heading to the Braehead Arena tonight (7.00pm) before a rematch at the SSE Arena tomorrow (4.00pm) with a place in the Challenge Cup Semi-Finals on the line.
With five wins from five in Group B, two wins — one of which has to be in regulation — would ensure Adam Keefe’s men couldn’t be caught in first place and would book their passage into the final four with five games to spare.
“As a team, we haven’t really talked about that. We’re just going one game at a time,” insists Morin.
“If we keep picking up the wins then it would be nice to lock down our position in the Semi-Final right away. But we go one game at a time and work out what it takes for us to play a solid game. That’s how we look at it.”