Don’t forget these names in your deep leagues …

While star players will do the bulk of the scoring for your fantasy team, having a roster full of productive players is also immensely important. Your league’s contending teams will always be star-studded so the quality of the depth can often be the big tiebreaker, whether it be for secondary scoring or injury replacements. If you are lucky you can beef up your depth through the waiver wire during the year. However, with limited moves allowed in many leagues it makes more sense to try to add these players in the fall draft or through offseason keeper league trades.

As with most secondary additions, there is some risk involved. Simply put, the failure rate is high because players at this level are just as likely to be fantasy duds. The key is to invest in the right places. By analyzing past history and opportunities you can find candidates that have a low value today but have the ability to overachieve in the upcoming campaign if everything goes well. With that in mind, here are five candidates now property of Eastern Conference teams that should be on your radar for the 2015-16 season:

Jason Akeson (RW – BUF)

One year ago, Akeson was poised to make the jump full-time to the NHL in Philadelphia. As we all know, that experiment failed and the longtime AHL star found himself back in the minors. Now in Buffalo at the age of 25 and on a two-way contract, the outlook is not very good. But despite the improvements this summer the Sabres are still a weak club with depth issues. This is where a guy with a scoring touch such as Akeson can come in handy. After all, the Sabres have a ton of forwards that missed significant time to injury last year.