PEORIA — The Peoria Rivermen don't know yet how far they will go in the 2025 SPHL playoffs, but they do know who will take them there.
The President's Cup defending champion Rivermen turned in their final 20-man playoff roster Sunday at the 2 p.m. central time league deadline.
SPHL rules allow teams to add players from their end-season IR list onto their playoff rosters at any time during postseason play, with a corresponding player removed from the roster for each addition.
That rule applies for any players the Rivermen hold rights to who are still in the ECHL. Should they opt to come back down to the SPHL, Peoria can add them.
"We're not expecting any of that, though," Rivermen head coach Jean-Guy Trudel said. "We have the players we need right here, these guys have been part of a 40-win team this year.
"We've battled through an unprecedented number of injured players and guys called up and all that adversity. We have to continue facing it, and make sure we are hungry and aggressive and give our fans and each other in the locker room a title defense we can be proud of."
The Rivermen go in as the SPHL's No. 1 seed, finishing in the top spot in the regular-season for the seventh time since joining the league in 2013-14.
While Peoria has won the SPHL championship two of the last three seasons, it has never happened from the No. 1 seed. They were knocked out of the playoffs six times as the No. 1 seed, and the seventh they never got a chance to test that seed as the pandemic ended the season without a postseason.
Now the Rivermen are trying to repeat with what might be the youngest team in SPHL playoff history -- 12 of 20 players are rookies -- and the least-experienced defense unit, of which all six members are rookies.
Here's a look at the roster the 40-10-6 Rivermen will take in against No. 8 seed Quad City when the best-of-3 first round opens on Thursday:
● Goaltenders: Colby Muise and Nick Latinovich.
● Defense: *Josh Martin, *Brenden Rons, *Kylar Fenton, *Mike Ferrandino, *Marko Jakovljevic, *Brian Scoville.
● Center: Alec Baer, Braydon Barker, *Carson Baptiste, JM Piotrowski, *Andrew Poulias, *Griffen Fox, *Jacob King.
● Left wing: Jordan Ernst, Carlos Fornaris, *Garrett Devine.
● Right wing: Mike ...
