As one of the top four teams in the Eastern Conference, the Caps have the good fortune of getting some postseason tune-ups in the round-robin tournament without worrying about potential elimination (yet).
Not so lucky are the teams that finished in fifth through twelfth place, who will be pitted against each other in a best-of-five series - with the winning teams advancing to take on the newly seeded top four.
Trying to figure out who the Caps will draw is, at this point, a completely futile exercise. We don’t know where the Caps will end up in the top four, nor do we know who will advance from the qualifying round or where they’ll slot in to the bracket.