I don’t like it either. Reduce the top division by two.
Gotta disagree here. Ten is absolutely perfect, pretty much includes one marginal team every year but eight is far too few. There are 7 teams that compete for/round out the final two spots in the top tier (9-10th in the world); Germany, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Latvia, Belarus, Kazakhstan. Not including Switzerland as they're solidly in the top eight now. It doesn't promote the growth of the game if a country like Slovakia is trying to avoid relegation on a yearly basis, and countries like Germany can't get to the top tier. Austria is a once-in-a-decade promotion and probably wouldn't have faired as well as a Belarus or Latvia would have performed against the states last night, but it's good for their hockey program to get the exposure.
On another note, Germany is a lot better team than a 16-2 score showed. They were the most affected covid-team, and they are missing Seider and Reichel. If those guys are playing along Stutzle and Peterka, this is a much different story.