Looking over the NHL draft pick value:
27th 3.2
58 1.2
What if Hughes and Gorton trades both the 27th overall pick and 58th overall pick to move up to the 17-18th overall pick?
Beckett Sennecke and Liam Greentree are both projected to to 15-18th in the draft.
Me thinks we could end up with one of (Demidov, Lindstrom) and (Sennecke, Greentree) this draft.
Sennecke will most likely be taken in the top 15 (I'd have him 12th on my personal list and it wouldn't surprise me if he actually goes late top 10 ), so trading-up to get him would cost us more than a single second-round pick.
In truth, we'd probably need to pony-up the Flames' (the Panthers' really) first in 2025 in addition to the 26th pick of this year's draft in order to entice teams in the 12-15 range.
As for Greentree, well, I'd rather that we draft a guy like Surin or Chernyshov to him.
But your concept still works, we COULD trade-up with Winnipeg's first + lesser picks this year, we have enough quantity of prospects and draft equity in the next two drafts to do it if our scouts identify a guy they really like that could be available in that range.