Your first nhl game and your favorite nhl game.

First EA game was NHLPA for the Sega.  I remember seeing the demo playing on a machine at the mall and was blown away by the "3D" graphics.

First hockey video game was Face Off!  for the PC.  Pretty simple, but you could edit an entire league and play out the games.  Had a neat ( for the time ) feature where when you took a shot it would change views and let you pick your shot against the goalie.

I'm not sure what my all-time favorite might be.  I spent a ton of time in my youth simulating leagues with Hockey League Simulator 2 ( which integrated with Wayne Gretzky Hockey 3 which was cool ).  NHL 95 will always have a spot in the top list for me based on nostalgia alone.  For the 'modern' EA games it's hard to say.  I do have a soft spot for NHL 16.  For all of its warts there was something nice about having fixed club builds that all had the same skating stats.  Being able to play a build without feeling forced into a "speed, speed, speed" meta was kind of refreshing.