There are two parts to the trade deadline movements: what the sellers get from the buyers; and, what happens to the sellers in the standings after they make whatever moves they are going to make.
Right now the Caps are in a tight group of 9 teams that look to be just below playoff level, unless somebody in this group gets extremely hot extremely soon. They are all between 63 and 68 standings points, and are all closer to each other than they are to the playoff teams above them, or the 7 worst teams below them. As part of this cluster, the Caps could finish anywhere between 8th from the bottom and 16th from the bottom - i.e., the "best" non-playoff team. So it seems that unless the lottery gods shine on them, they will be picking no higher, and probably lower, in the upcoming draft than they did last year.
This really feels as if the Caps are getting stuck in the beginnings of a cycle of mediocrity. They have already left the Ovechkin era, in that Ovie is just another player at this point so he doesn't define the team's fortunes as he did previously. So even into a transition era, the Caps aren't bad enough to really be in the running for the next wave of very best players who will help to define the upcoming hockey generation. They'll be stuck with a bunch of "guys."
