Hextall continued to display the aggressive nature with which he had always played, swinging his stick at Brad Smith and Troy Murray early in his first NHL season. Despite these swipes, Hextall claimed at the time that, "I used to be worse, I've learned to control my temper." Two months after making these comments, Hextall was involved in a fight with opposing New Jersey Devils goaltender Alain Chevrier. Having lost to the Devils, the Flyers wanted revenge for Steve Richmond's punch on Kjell Samuelsson at the end of the game; Hextall targeted Chevrier in a fight labelled by Chico Resch as "like a heavyweight against a lightweight." Hextall and seven other players were fined $300 each for their part in the brawl. In 66 regular season games during his rookie year, Hextall posted a GAA of 3.00 and recorded 37 wins. He was awarded the Vezina Trophy for the most outstanding goaltender by the NHL general managers, but he was second in the voting to Luc Robitaille for the Calder Memorial Trophy, awarded to the "player selected as the most proficient in his first year of competition". Hextall led the Flyers to top their Conference, and win the Prince of Wales Trophy. The Flyers progressed to face the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Finals, having beaten the New York Rangers 4–2, the New York Islanders 4–3, and the Montreal Canadiens 4–2. Following their series victory over Montreal, Flyers captain Dave Poulin identified Hextall as the team's leading performer. In the fourth game of the Finals, Hextall received two penalties, first a ten-minute misconduct penalty for "expressing his displeasure at the fourth Oiler goal," and later a five-minute penalty for slashing Kent Nilsson. In the latter incident, Hextall had received a slash from Glenn Anderson for which there was no call from the referees, and Hextall sought revenge by striking the back of Nilsson's knees. After the game Hextall expressed remorse for striking the wrong player but not for his action: If somebody slaps you in the face, you're going to slap him back, it's not like he gave me a touch to jar the puck. What's he going to do next, break my arm? I'm sorry it was Nilsson and not Anderson I hit, but I just reacted. At the time, it seemed the right thing to do. The performance of Hextall in the next game tied the series