Thursday thoughts: Crunching advanced hockey stats, and the KHL's one hungry bear

Before you get around to submitting your nominations for the All-Time Nashville Predators Team, be sure to review your morning news; we've got a virtual symposium on advanced hockey statistics, and word from Russia that the KHL may be gearing up to lure more NHL stars overseas.

All this and more, after the jump!

Predators News

What should the NHL change? - Nashville Predators Examiner
After engaging in the Puck Daddy meme for this month yesterday (5 Reasons I Love Hockey), Jim Diamond tries his hand at last summer's exercise, 5 Things I'd Change About the NHL. I share his abhorrence for an artifact from high school geometry class...

Around the NHL

Putting your faith in the 'new' stats - From The Rink
James Mirtle kicks off an outstanding discussion on new hockey stats; which ones people find useful, and which ones they don't.

How lazy and sloppy backchecking helped kill the Oilers last season - Cult of Hockey
Dave Staples reviewed every Goal Against for the Edmonton Oilers last season, and shares his analysis as to why they occurred. I'm not sure I'm on board with this kind of analysis, as it ignores team breakdowns when the goalie makes the save or the shooter fires the puck wide, but I give credit to him for doing the detailed analysis.

Hockey Pool Geek
I've been poking around an interesting new website dedicated to Fantasy Hockey, and recommend checking it out if you're into such things. I'll probably have more relative to this site next week.

MEDVEDEV TO SUPPORT KHL CLUBS - SPORT EXPRESS
In a bid to capitalize on the NHL's stagnant salary cap, which is (in part) to blame for the fact that several standout players remain on the free agent market, the KHL stands poised to boost their central funding pool which allows Russian teams to entice players across the Atlantic without overburdening their own payroll. Currently KHL teams can only allocate one player's salary to this central fund, and the suggestion is to bump up that limit.

Fenway Park to feature Hockey East doubleheader - Puck Daddy
Word comes that on January 8, a week after the Winter Classic, Boston's Fenway Park will host a pair of college hockey games; a wise idea to build upon the setup that will already be in place.

NHL Legend Jeremy Roenick On Retiring, Regrets, Fame & The Future - Mouthpiece Sports
Jeremy Roenick talks about hanging up his skates after 20 years in the NHL, and guess which Nashville Predator he'd "most like to punch off the ice"? No, it's not Gnash...

SB Nation Adds Spencer Hall, Eamonn Brennan - Blog Huddle
Big news on the SB Nation front as two big names join our network, including the college football blog Every Day Should Be Saturday.

Integrity? NHL governors live in glass house - The Hamilton Spectator
We see argument #13,512 made that because the NHL has admitted guys into ownership who then turned out to be crooks, they aren't justified in rejecting Jim Balsillie. In light of the John Spano's and "Boots" Del Biaggio's, however, doesn't that imply that the NHL should be more selective about who gets in the club going forward, not less?

As an extra, totally non-hockey related addendum (well, not entirely, there is a San Jose Sharks reference in there), I wanted to share with you a presentation I watched last night over at Dave Delaney's blog - Guy Kawasaki's "product evangelism" address to the 2007 Gnomedex Conference. Inspiring stuff indeed...