I prefer NHLPA '93 and it's not even close. The one-timer, to me, leads to a homogeny of scoring, as players wind up relying on it to an extreme extent. If you play NHLPA '93 with a player of relatively equal skill, you're forced to be creative on offense and defense, rather than just lining up one-timers from between the circles, which go in half the time. Yes, you can score on a deke or a wraparound in '93 with any halfway decent speedy player, but there are defensive strategies you can use to minimize that. Even if the skills between players aren't so equal, the disparity in talent amongst the teams allows for some pretty good handicapping.
The other thing is that in NHLPA '93, more than any other EA game, imo, the abilities of the players mean more, especially, as I've been discovering, offensive and defensive awareness, which pretty much dictate the effectiveness of your AI-controlled teammates. Not only that, the various teams are constructed, ability-wise, to employ a variety of different strategies. Playing a game with Washington isn't the same as playing a game with Detroit. And some of my friends have even figured out a way to use fighting as a weapon. It's a huge boost to remove a certain key player for the length of a period (in five minute games) with your otherwise-wortheless goon.
Some friends and I have also developed a league system that we think is pretty ingenious. You need twelve players (less than they have in some of the NHL 94 online leagues). Every player controls two teams, one from the Campbell, one from the Wales. A draft order is randomly determined. The first player can pick from either conference, but if he picks the first team in the Campbell Conference, he picks last in the Wales. For instance, the guy who got the first pick this year picked Detroit in the Campbell, meaning he got the last pick in the Wales (and wound up with Ottawa). He picked wisely, anyway, as Detroit wound up winning the league in our first year.
Each team plays 32 games, four each against teams in the same division, two each against teams in the other division in conference (none against teams in the other conference). Playoffs are old-school division style. Settings are five minute periods, line changes on, all penalties on except offsides (although we're considering adding it for this upcoming season). The only house rules are that you can't do the "pass goal" (penalty is playing without a goaltender until the other team scores, and if you do it in the final minute, you forfeit the game). There was only one violation of this rule, accidently committed by yours truly when Jeff Brown's center ice feed to Brendan Shanahan abruptly sailed forward and beat Kelly Hrudey five-hole. Thankfully, it occurred in the second period, and I promptly shoved the puck into my own net to get the game back on track.