What's the evidence of them doing this exactly?

Releasing a game that's unfinished and charging full price, trying to hide the fact that many game modes were missing until the last minute (and after fans had to find out through their own digging) in an effort to prevent a mass drop in preorder numbers, spending the bulk of their production time on the microtransaction-filled game mode, cashing in on the people who own the old consoles by releasing a game that's essentially a $70 roster update, etc.

I know your response is going to be "that's not evidence", and while you're right that one can only speculate about their motives, you said it yourself: they're a business, after all. Combine all of those things, and while you'd be hard-pressed to decidedly prove anything beyond reasonable doubt, it certainly doesn't paint them as a group of people who gave any amount of shits about the quality of their finished product, and who gave a whole big pile of shits about salvaging as much money as they could by taking it from people who just want a good game.

I highly doubt the actual workers creating the game want it to be flawed and are solely concerned with making money and "ripping you off". The people that put the work into this game that thousands of us enjoy likely tried their hardest with what resources they were provided and any flaws or bugs are unintentional and likely due to a lack of staff or time given to produce such a game.

Indeed, the people that put work into the game might have actually cared about the quality of their work, but those people got paid for the effort they put in. Chances are, aside from a bonus if the game does exceptionally well, those hard workers who gave a shit have done their job and been compensated for it - they don't see any share of the actual sales.

Somewhere at the top someone (or a group of someones) decided that they could sleep well at night having charged honest people full price for a game where the GM mode didn't even let them choose who their team drafts.

You're right when you say that the intent probably wasn't to screw NHL fans from the get-go, because that's not how things work, but there's a big difference between charging people $70 for something you feel is actually "good enough" and charging people $70 while trying to delay as long as possible anyone finding out that your game's a train wreck in the hopes that you don't lose out on taking their money.

I just personally don't think that anyone involved in that decision could honestly say they thought this game was "good enough" to be released with a full price sticker on it.

And that is exactly why I have that image of a bunch of "fat-cats" in a board room.