NHL 95

"NHL 95 introduced many new elements to the series. Firstly, the graphics on the Genesis and SNES gamed differed greatly from the first three installments of the NHL series (The DOS version kept those graphics). For the first time, a complete season could be played, and players could be created, traded, signed, and released. It is also the first game to give out year end awards at the end of the season. Other gameplay improvements include fake shots, drop passes and lying on the ice to block shots. Fighting is still removed but if a player sustained a multi game injury during season play, the player would be shown laying on the ice with nasty leg injury, if it was during exhibition game the player would have stars around his head."

Source: Wikipedia, NHL 95 , available under the CC-BY-SA License.