Where would you put the NR attack in TFA? I think it would work well to have it where the attack is in restructured, and then you could say that the FO was using starkiller as a red herring to distract the resistance from the dreadnaught deploying. You wouldn’t be able to get the main characters immediate reactions but it could work.

Edit: You could also get a little meta with the ANH connections and have the rebels assume that the FO is building a new superlaser and rush to destroy it, which plays right into the FO’S plan to distract them.