help with franchise/expansion challenge

[bradusketch]

What's the easiest way to do this? I'd like to make an expansion team and bring the old Portland Buckaroos to the NHL. The catch? I want to use only players who've played for the Portland Winterhawks in the past (or have some sort of connection, since I'll need to fill some gaps.)
That in itself will be challenge enough as they don't have an amazing lineup. Core guys include Seth Jones, Matt Dumba, Ryan Johansen, Nino Niedereitter, Marian Hossa, and Brandon Dubinsky. Lots of mediocre prospects as well.
Ideally I'd like to create the team and use the expansion team, but I just gave it a shot picking any ex-hawk from the available expansion teams, and then picking best options from the other teams to use as trade bait. But just trading for Jones, Dubinsky and Dumba I had already given up all of my players with any trade value as well as several first and 2nd round picks. So I'm abandoning that route.
One other option I'll consider if I can't find a way to get all the players I want on an expansion team is to run a fantasy draft and use the Blackhawks instead. This isn't ideal, I'd rather go Buckaroos, but the Blackhawks at least have the same jersey as the Winterhawks. I'm pretty sure I can get all but a few less valuable ex winterhawks in a fantasy draft format, so it should be relatively easy to trade for any I miss out on.
Any thoughts on this? Even turning trading with computer teams to easy, I was nowhere near being able to trade for all the players I want after drafting an expansion team. Maybe if I found a creative way to just draft the player with the most trade value from each team during the expansion draft? I only ended up with 2 or 3 guys with even trade value equal to a 2nd/3rd, and I'm pretty sure those were the guys I got in the entry draft. It doesn't appear there's any way to 'force' trades with the computer once in franchise mode, or that would be the easiest solution.