Drop Lowest is a very handy feature - it is like a fully automated "auto-trade" function for your poolies - it will always keep the highest scoring players active by dropping the lowest scoring X players on each team when calculating team totals. It's fully automatic, neither poolies nor administrator have to lift a finger all season long! This makes the pool much more fun for everyone, because you can afford to make a bad pick or two, or sustain an injury or contractual holdout or retirement, and not automatically lose because of it. It tends to help everyone - especially rookie poolies - stay in contention and therefore encourages them to rejoin your pool year after year. Dropping the lowest scoring 2 players is a common choice.

Keep at Least can be used in conjunction with the "Drop Lowest" feature if your pool requires each poolie to keep a certain Team Profile (a realistic balance of players that reflects the true composition of an nhl team). This feature will make sure every poolie will Keep at Least X players in each position you specify. For example in a pool with a team size of 12 and a "Drop Lowest" of 2, poolies might be required to "Keep at Least" 6 fwd, 2 def, 1 enforcer, 1 goalie in the 10 retained players. So, you would enter 4 lines in the "Keep at Least" section - as below. If you want to keep at least "8 skaters" and didn't care if they were fwd/def, you can combine them on one line as below.

Drop lowest 2 - Keep at Least 6 fwd, 2 def, 1 enf, 1 glt Drop lowest 2 - Keep at Least 8 skaters (fwd or def), 1 enf, 1 glt

Keep Exactly - if you want to enforce a very strict Team Profile - for example if each poolie must keep exactly 10 forwards, 5 defense, 2 enforcers, 1 goalie etc, it can be done. Here's how - set your "Drop Lowest" value to whatever your team size is so it drops ALL players! Then use the "Keep at Least" lines to specify the exact number of players you want to keep at each position. That way, you will be left with exactly what you specify for "Keep at Least". So for example if your poolies pick 25 players per team, specify "Drop Lowest 25" so ALL their players are dropped - then in "Keep at Least" enter (for example) 10 fwd on the 1st line, 5 def on the 2nd line, 2 enf on the 3rd lne, 1 glt on the 4th line - and that's exactly what all your poolies will keep, 18 players (out of 25 picked) with an exact team profile.

Variable Length Teams - if you have the type of pool that allows variable length teams - perhaps by salary - and it is interfering with the Drop Lowest or Keep at Least functions, you can "Pad Out" your all your team lengths to be the same length - then the Drop Lowest feature applies evenly to everyone. There is a player whose last name is Zero (because he gets zero points) that you can choose to pad out teams without affecting point totals - look under "Z" in the administrator login player list. You can make the "Zero" player any position you need to by changing his "Position" column appropriately.