Every Wednesday we’ll take a look at the status of the Rangers’ AHL affiliate. Top prospects Ryan Bourque and Carl Hagelin will be key players for the Whale this season - we’ll check on how they’re doing and how the team performs as the season progresses.

- Over the weekend the New York Rangers recalled Brendan Bell from the CT Whale for their Western Canada road trip and also recalled forward Kris Newbury, who had factored into each of the first eight goals scored by the Whale this season.

- New York assigned winger Mats Zuccarello to the Whale, where he’ll immediately become one of the team’s most important offensive players.  The Rangers want Zuccarello to play much more than he was in New York, but with no openings on the Rangers’ top lines Zuccarello could be in the AHL for awhile.  Zuccarello seems upbeat about his demotion.

- The Whale lost two shootouts this weekend, first on Friday to the Albany Devils and then on Saturday to the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

Carl Hagelin and Andre Deveaux both scored their first goal of the season against the Devils, but no one on the Whale scored in the shootout while Matt Taormina was able to beat Chad Johnson for Albany’s lone shootout marker.

As the Rangers were losing to the New York Islanders, Connecticut fell to the Islanders’ AHL affiliate, the Sound Tigers, 5-4 in a shootout.  John Mitchell and Brendan Bell scored in the skills competition, but Chad Johnson allowed three Sound Tigers to score.  Johnson made 23 saves on 27 shots during the game.

- Carl Hagelin was named the first-star of Saturday’s game as he recorded two goals and an assist. Hagelin now has three goals on the season.  He’s also a team-leading plus-5.

- Like the Rangers, Connecticut has had trouble getting secondary scoring.  Newbury and Hagelin have seven goals combined, but Andre Deveaux is the Whale’s only other goal-scorer.  The call-up of Newbury means that Connecticut will have to reconfigure its top line.  Newbury, Hagelin and Deveaux had provided virtually all of the Whale’s offense.

- Ryan Bourque was not in Connecticut’s lineup for Saturday’s home-opener because of illness, but he should play this weekend.  Defenseman Pavel Valentenko and Lee Baldwin could also return to the lineup.

- There’s been no indication that Sean Avery is close to making his Whale debut.

- The Whale has blown two-goal leads three times in its last four games and has lost three games in a row.

- Connecticut has three games in a row this weekend.  First the Whale will host the Manchester Monarchs, the AHL affiliate of the Los Angeles Kings, on Friday at 7:00 p.m.  Then Connecticut will play a home-and-home against the Springfield Falcons, Columbus’s farm team, on Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., respectively.

- The Whale had the third-highest attendance among Eastern Conference teams for the team’s home-opener, drawing 8,832.

- Here’s Connecticut’s 2011-2012 intro video.

Past editions of The Whale Week That Was:

The Whale Week That Was - October 5, 2011 >

The Whale Week That Was – October 12, 2011 >

The Whale Week That Was – October 19, 2011 >

Click here for our full 2011-2012 Season Archive >

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