6 Must-Use Meteor Packages for (Almost) Every Project

Does meteorhacks:npm still required to use npm package ?
When creating a package i succeed to load npm package using :

Npm.depends(
  {
    "iconv-lite": "0.4.6",
    "request": "2.51.0"
  }
)

So i’m not sure when i have to use meteorhacks:npm