Lightning hold off impressive rookie-laden Leafs for 7th straight win

Tyler Johnson recorded his first multi-goal game of the season and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves as the Tampa Bay Lightning held off a young Toronto Maple Leafs lineup for a 2-1 victory Monday, extending their winning streak to seven games.

The big performance from Johnson comes just one day after he was forced from a game against the Boston Bruins due to a puck to the head from an Adam McQuaid clearing attempt. The 28-year-old has three goals and two assists in his last six games.

The other story from the game came from a quartet of Maple Leaf rookies making their NHL debuts in William Nylander, Kasperi Kapanen, Zach Hyman, and Nikita Soshnikov. All four impressed, but were ultimately kept off the scoresheet.

After Nazem Kadri scored with under three minutes left to make it a one-goal game, head coach Mike Babcock turned to Nylander, Kapanen, and Hyman for the game's final shift and the Maple Leafs kept considerable pressure before defenseman Jake Gardiner failed to keep the puck inside the blue line.

"I thought they were good," said Babcock of the debuting Leafs, per James Mirtle of the Globe and Mail. "I was impressed with them."

Though the result didn't go the way they'd hoped, it was clearly a dream come true for all four players to hit the ice at the NHL level.

"When you're standing in front of (Steven) Stamkos, you're like 'this is the NHL,'" Nylander told reporters, but admitted: "I just wanted to score, that's the only thing, and win the game. Otherwise it was lots of fun."

The Leafs now head to Washington on Wednesday, where recent acquisition Brooks Laich will visit his old team. The Lightning, who have drawn even with the Florida Panthers at 78 points atop the Atlantic, will wrap up their three-game trip against the Ottawa Senators.