I'm pretty sure the divisons will balance after first Divison based ECL has finished. One tournament on "wrong" divison will not kill anybody. And after the first Division based ECL, the new teams should automatically start from Lite. That would motivate the teams to stay. .....And will inevitably greate these shady GM status guys who dont actually play anymore, but still own their teams and they will use money to buy and sell their players for excessive sums like 600€. And after New NHL is releaserd there will allways be someone who has stolen the team from the previous GM as he has been faster to greate the team in release. These matters will be prought to EA office and they will haveto make a new system, so that NHL will automatically reserve existing teams to their GM's, when new version of the game is released. Eventually the teams them selves can be sold to a new GM. And the old GM who has made his team solid POFF team will make massive amounts of monney to retire and play NHL09 on his basement, as the 09 is told to be the best version of the game ever!
snap, crackle, pop!