There are a few. Jerome Iginla, Joe Sakic, Steve Yzerman when I was Super young. Eric Staal became my all time favourite player when the Canes won the cup in 06 (9 years old)
Also a huge factor in this is the fact I am from Thunder Bay ON
I never had a player that made me fall in love with the game but the earliest players that I can remember liking are Stamkos, Tyler Myers and Dwayne Roloson because I kicked ass with them in NHL.
Evgeny Nabokov; made me a sharks fan and try goaltending.
Then you got random names that are stuck in my head: Pavol Demitra (like just a name that I’m never gonna forget), Smyth, Havlat, Heatley, Dipietro. to name a few
For me it was the MSU Spartans I lived just off campus for 4 years.
Then when we moved to Detroit it was Steve Yzerman and Joe Sakic still with the Quebec Nordiques. I do consider myself lucky to have seen players like Fedorov, Lidstrom and Datsyuk play on a regular basis.