Sheldon Keefe said the Toronto Maple Leafs would reap the benefits of a convincing 6-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings.

Toronto are 10-2 for November so far, a league-leading number of wins, and sit in second place in the Atlantic Division after that surge.

Wednesday night's victory saw Keefe's team avenge a 5-1 loss to the Kings from earlier in the month when the Maple Leafs had a rare off night.

On this occasion, a 4-1 burst in the second period took the game away from the Kings, with the evening's endeavour leaving Keefe full of admiration for his team come the end of the game.

Goals from Pierre Engvall, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Michael Bunting, Alexander Kerfoot and Jason Spezza sank the home side, with Rasmus Sandin notching three assists.

Keefe said: "I thought we did some good things in terms of how we want to attack the net, increase our volume a little bit. But I don't know if it's just a matter of some of the luck coming back our way. I don't know if we did anything a whole lot different than what we have been doing in other games, but it was certainly nice to see it going [our way].

"I can't remember the last time we've blown a game open like that. It's been a long time, all season frankly. So it was nice to have that.

"We've played good hockey on the road of late, but we haven't gotten the goals so we've really had to grind it out till the end, so it was nice today to have a nice cushion and leave here with lots of positivity.

"It's great for the team, great for the camaraderie of the group.

"It was nice to have that for our guys. When you’re scoring, the group is feeling good. We have played good hockey on the road here of late, but we haven’t gotten the goals.

"We have really had to grind it out to the very end. It was nice today to have a good cushion. We will leave here with lots of positivity and the group feeling good."

There was a negative among abundant positives as David Kampf hit his head after a coming together with the Kings' Rasmus Kupari and was withdrawn in the first period and kept off the ice thereafter.

Keefe said: "With the nature of the hit, it is precautionary. He will be re-evaluated tomorrow. We will take it from there.

"I saw a replay on the bench. It looked to me like direct contact to his head, so you hate to see that. I don't know how much intent was there, it looked pretty accidental to me."

Like everything else over the past year, the hockey world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic. The 2019-20 season was completed with teams playing in bubble locations in Toronto and Edmonton and the 2020 campaign will open without fans as part of a condensed 56-game season, among a slew of other changes. 

With the previous season extending several months past the normal ending date, the league had little choice but to delay the start of 2021 and to find a way to make a shortened season work. The new plan is for the regular season to end on May 8, with the Stanley Cup awarded no later than July 9. 

Of course, nothing is set in stone anymore and the NBA and NFL have had to deal with countless COVID-19 issues, so the NHL expects similar problems to arise with the pandemic experiencing another surge. The league knows it may have to adapt and games will very likely need to be rescheduled. 

The NHL has already dealt with this, as the start of the season for the Dallas Stars had to be pushed back to January 19 after six players and two staffers tested positive for coronavirus. While the completion of last season in the bubble locations was virtually flawless, teams are playing in home arenas this season, increasing the chances of players becoming infected. 

To combat this, teams will be allowed to carry taxi squads of four to six extra players who will practice and be prepared to step in when needed. 

While there is less hockey to enjoy, there are some tweaks to the upcoming season that fans will enjoy. 

The four divisions have been realigned and they include an all-Canada division of seven teams, made necessary by border restrictions. The other three divisions are mostly based on geography, but St Louis and Minnesota were shuffled into a division with the three California teams, Vegas, Arizona and Colorado. 

The Chicago-Detroit rivalry gets renewed with the Red Wings moving into the Central Division, and Tampa Bay and Dallas – last season's Stanley Cup Final participants – are now together in the Central.  

There should be no shortage of intensity this season with teams scheduled to play mostly back-to-back sets solely against teams in their own division. So, the Flyers and Penguins will meet eight times, as will the Islanders and Rangers and Kings and Ducks. The teams in the all-Canada division will face each other nine or 10 times.  

The first two playoff rounds will be played within the division, meaning the bad blood that started in the regular season could grow even deeper. The division winners will then advance to the semifinals but seeding will be based on points rather than geography.  

The new setup raises the possibility of a Stanley Cup Final between traditional East teams like the Capitals and Penguins or Canadian rivals Montreal and Toronto.   

To recoup some of the money lost by having no fans or limited fans at the start of the season in some cities, the NHL is allowing teams to include a sponsor name on their helmets and each division will also include the name of a corporate sponsor. 

The condensed season was preceded by an abbreviated training camp without exhibition games and there is concern that the start of the season will be marred by sloppy play. This could be especially true for the seven teams that have not played a game since March after they did not qualify for the expanded playoffs.  

As in any offseason, several big-name players changed teams. It will be jarring to see 43-year-old Zdeno Chara in a Capitals uniform and Joe Thornton playing for the Maple Leafs after 14 seasons in San Jose. Henrik Lundqvist would have looked strange as a member of the Capitals following an 887-game run with the Rangers, but he decided not to play this season due to a heart condition. 

Injuries will also keep some marquee players off the ice for a while. Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov – the 2018-19 scoring leader – will miss the entire regular season due to hip surgery and the Stars could be without top forward Tyler Sequin (hip) and goaltender Ben Bishop (knee) until at least March.  

Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews is out indefinitely with an unknown illness and there is no word on whether the 12-time 20-goal scorer will play this season. 

While this season is full of unknowns and will be like no other before it, the potential is there for it to be one of the most exciting in recent memory.