If the latter technically it can already be done. If using LMS as the media server you can setup Snakeoil as just a player (i.e. runs only Squeezelite).
Similarly you can do so with MPD, with upmpdcli queuing up a playlist from a remote source.
This is kind of what I'm doing now. I have LMS running in a LXC container in something called a Promox cluster. Then my player just runs Squeezelite.