"When I was out in L.A., we played against him in the playoffs a couple of times, and obviously we played them a lot and I saw the West a lot back then," Hextall said. "First of all, you do your homework and find out everything about the kid. He's a real good team guy, which is important. His work ethic is at a high level, his [will to] compete is at a high level. Teammates want to play for him. There's a lot of things when you look at goalies that you look for, and Brian checked a lot of the boxes off."