McDavid's goal-scoring has also cooled off. After finding the back of the net five times in the first eight games of the season, he has not lit the lamp in the team's last 10 contests.
"It's a streaky league," said the captain. "It's a weird league in the sense that sometimes you get goals when they definitely shouldn't have gone in, and sometimes you're doing everything right and it's just not going in. It's the way it goes. I think every player who's ever played in this league has gone through it."
McDavid, who still leads the NHL in assists with 14, said all he can do to snap out of the scoring funk is continue to create chances and wait for the law of averages to work itself out.
"I'm happy with how I've been playing," he said. "I've been generating a lot and still contributing with assists… Scoring isn't the only thing in this game."
As for the team struggles, the captain believes the Oilers (9-8-1) are still in good shape and bound to get back in the win column soon.
"If someone told me at the beginning of the year that we'd be sitting in second place in the Pacific two months into the year, I would have taken that any day," he said. "It's not the end of the world. We're going through a rough patch. Every team does it. We'll find a way out of it, just like everyone else does. I think we're still sitting in a good position."
