Well yeah, how many times did I say "I think" in the post?
But it all hinges on Backstrom, that much is basically fact and the GM has basically said as much. So in the meantime, do you think it's more reasonable that they're suddenly trying to compete and making big competitive swings? There's no real point until they figure out if Backstrom is ever going to resemble himself again and if Kuznetsov is interested in dislodging his head from his ass.
The thing that makes the most sense is putting their chips in on guys that they think could be much greater than their recent history due to injury. If they just wanted warm bodies they could sign guys you'd actually expect to be healthy and dress for most of the games. If everything worked out just perfect it could mean playoffs but the Capitals don't have the cap space or assets to fix the gulf at center (because it's all tied up at center) and the team is fine everywhere but the top 6. Pacioretty and Edmundson aren't fixing that, but the natural obvious backdoor exit is that they're both 1 year contracts on "better than slot" players looking to return to form/health, and if they do that makes them abnormally strong deadline assets.
If Pacioretty, for example, manages to play and produce without his ankle detonating he's a top 6 producer with a cap hit of 2-4m that can be retained 50% at the deadline (and obviously that's prorated, so he's about as cheap as you can expect a player to be). That to me makes a lot more sense than the other options.