2018-19 Men's Power Rankings

The Ladies' thread has been around for a while, but it's generally the case that the Men take a bit longer to hit their stride.
Now that the first 3 GPs are completed, how does the field look? There are some surprises with skaters performing better, or worse, than expected. Rank your top 10 skaters for this season so far and try for some predictions.
(This isn't a favorites thread, but more a skills/potential thread ) --That's what I tell myself as I try to battle my biases. I failed.

1. Yuzuru Hanyu Still on top -- well rounded, ambitious and just won GP Finland. Yuzu is actually scoring higher than he ever has before at this point in the season. The only danger for him, and it's a big one, is injury. He wants to go for very high difficulty which could knock him out of competing if he's not careful.
2. Nathan Chen It's close with the top 3. I put Nathan in second, between Yuzu and Shoma because of his FS score. He has very strong programs again this year, and seems to managing his school/sports balance in an amazing way so far.
Can he up his difficulty while still getting his studies done? -That's his main challenge
3. Shoma, basically tied with Nathan, and in some areas he is ahead. Shoma has his mind set to win things this year and his high BV, though causing inconsistency right now, may give him the edge once he's trained them a few more weeks. He's got all he needs to shoot for gold. His motto this year is 'Believe'

4- Michal Brezina Oh, he's in the potato position again! But it's because he's won 2 silvers in a shocking comeback that I was really not expecting. He always had the skills for it, but now, at last, he's got his head in the right place too. :eeking::eeking:
5. Cha Jun Hwan, still a new-comer and suffering from newbie PCS. Once he establishes himself as consistent, he can rise. URs are something he needs to watch out for. His Lz-lo combos are tricky and judges are stricter these days
6. Keegan Messing -Like Brezina, Keegan has found consistency so far and his good basic skills have propelled him to number 6. At around 4-8 it's all about delivering the content on the day.

7-8, Boyang and Kolyada...I'm not sure they actually belong so low on the rankings. They still have their record of medals (bronzes) and a high arsenal of tech that they are able to do. But they showed some trouble with execution on competition day. They could be anywhere from 8th-4th or higher. Their challenges may be a training/coaching one. Do they come to competition prepared?

9 Demitry Aliev...though he might move up considerably or down, --I really can't tell, I don't follow his stats enough to know if he's maxing out his abilities or not?

10 Voronov ...Still alive and kicking. :thumbsup:

Share your rankings of a top 10 --I actually think I've forgotten some skaters. Discuss!

I think it's a bit early to say. Some guys on your list haven't done a GP yet. Brezina has done two. Same with Challengers. I would look at it like this:

Top 3, performing more or less as expected: Hanyu, Shoma, Nathan. Hanyu won his first GP for the first time and looks strong. We haven't seen Shoma at a GP yet. He won Lombardia, but scores there tend to be inflated. NHK should give us more information. It will be interesting to see how Nathan does in France with the end of first term / final examinations looming. I would characterize all three of these guys as very, very strong willed, and maybe that's why they're at the top.

Outperforming expectations: Keegan, Brezina, Jun. I'm more confident in Keegan than Brezina, who took silver at Skate America in a very weak, messy field. Still, he's on an upward trend. Jun didn't score as well in Finland as in Canada, but still looks strong.

Mixed Bag: Kolyada, Aliev. Kolyada did really well at two Challenger events but totally underperformed at his first GP, where his score was more than 30 points under his season's best. I would put Aliev in the same category - he had a 20+ point drop between Challengers 1 and 2 - but he hasn't done a GP yet. We'll know more in a few weeks.

Underperforming: Boyang. We've only seen him once. It's hard to tell if it's just early season or if he's got other issues.

Meh: Voronov. He took bronze at Skate America because the field was weak, but his SB is only 239.

To watch: Nam, Vincent, Samarin, Kevin Aymoz, Jason. These guys have SB scores between 225-248 this season that don't necessarily reflect where they'll end up. Samarin at 248 is 10 points higher than Voronov. Nam and Kevin are both on the upswing. Kevin has one of the lowest scores in this group but has a lot of potential, so it will be interesting to see how he does in France. Vincent and Jason are both question marks. Vincent's scores are at the low end of this group but he has high scoring potential if he can fix his <. Jason is really a work in progress and it remains to be seen how soon he'll be comfortable with the coaching change / new technique - but it's worth mentioning that even though he's struggling, he's right behind Voronov on the SB list; also worth noting that his 6th place score at Skate Canada would have been good enough for bronze at Skate America.

Tavi... said:

We haven't seen Shoma at a GP yet. He won Lombardia, but scores there tend to be inflated. NHK should give us more information.

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Skate Canada did not exist. :reye:

Yes, @Tavi I was about to say, Shoma has won Skate Canada with an iffy short and a very good Free Skate.
At the moment the Free Skate highest scores are pretty close between the top 3

Yuzuru 190.43 Helsinki, Landed all jumps including 4 quads and 2 3As, a couple iffy landings and OTs
Nathan 189.99 Skate America Clean performance, 3 quads, 1 3A
Shoma 188.38 Skate Canada 4 Quads 2 3As attempted, 2 falls

Interspectator said:

Yes, @Tavi I was about to say, Shoma has won Skate Canada with an iffy short and a very good Free Skate.
At the moment the Free Skate highest scores are pretty close between the top 3

Yuzuru 190.43 Helsinki, Landed all jumps including 4 quads and 2 3As, a couple iffy landings and OTs
Nathan 189.99 Skate America Clean performance, 3 quads, 1 3A
Shoma 188.38 Skate Canada 4 Quads 2 3As attempted, 2 falls

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It is interesting. They are the Top guys and all of them are different and great driverof the sports. And now their PCs, are same so it feels it will come down to who can perform on the day because if any make a mistakes, the other will take it.

I really like how this GP series is set up this season. You have Nathan, Hanyu, and Shoma NOT meeting at any event and expected to dominate their events.

And all meeting at the GPF to battle each other for the 1st time, which will be a great event.

With the other 3rd spot taken by Michal it looks like it.

The Mens field is turning out to be a very interesting battleground compared to the other dicipline.

Interspectator said:

Yes, @Tavi I was about to say, Shoma has won Skate Canada with an iffy short and a very good Free Skate.
At the moment the Free Skate highest scores are pretty close between the top 3

Yuzuru 190.43 Helsinki, Landed all jumps including 4 quads and 2 3As, a couple iffy landings and OTs
Nathan 189.99 Skate America Clean performance, 3 quads, 1 3A
Shoma 188.38 Skate Canada 4 Quads 2 3As attempted, 2 falls

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And each has potential to increase these scores by a lot. Yuzuru had very low GOEs for his standards this time around due to his landings, Nathan will bring in more difficulty with his next outings which will increase his scores, and Shoma had two falls which lowered both his GOE and PCS, mistakes he won't make next time around. So I feel like we'll maybe see each surpassing each other's scores with each GP in an exciting battle to the top.

-Of course, there's also Javi's last Hurrah at Euros! --So he's not retired yet.
Jason's placement off the top 10 for me is because I consider him 'under construction' and don't expect him come up to speed till the second half of the season or maybe even later.
Vincent is a really, really wild card. He has very nice UR quads which might, or might not be called on any given night that could place him on the podium or way back.

xeyra said:

And each has potential to increase these scores by a lot. Yuzuru had very low GOEs for his standards this time around due to his landings, Nathan will bring in more difficulty with his next outings which will increase his scores, and Shoma had two falls which lowered both his GOE and PCS, mistakes he won't make next time around. So I feel like we'll maybe see each surpassing each other's scores with each GP in an exciting battle to the top.

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Yeah, all 3 can go higher. Such an interesting battle to the top.

Dont know if Hanyu can do the 4axel because the Underrotation rule is stricter now. And with the combo rule, putting 2 high scoring jumps is not a good idea as it devalues the potential.

But Nathan has the highest potential if he actually does 6 quads again with the loop. He is the only one that can really max the tech with quads. But concern if he can manage school and skating. At the moment, he seems ok, but that is a lot of technical content and Yale is a lot of work that cut training time especially without Raf there.

But it is a fun battle among the 3.

xeyra said:

And each has potential to increase these scores by a lot. Yuzuru had very low GOEs for his standards this time around due to his landings, Nathan will bring in more difficulty with his next outings which will increase his scores, and Shoma had two falls which lowered both his GOE and PCS, mistakes he won't make next time around. So I feel like we'll maybe see each surpassing each other's scores with each GP in an exciting battle to the top.

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Nathan had 2 UR jumps at SA which they did not call for some reason.

charlotte14 said:

Skate Canada did not exist. :reye:

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okay guys sorry, but I wrote that at 2:00 am my time -completely forgot.

And Interspectator, I assumed that you left Jason off the list bc he's in the midst of a huge change - but I still question whether there really is a clear group of top ten men right now. Aliev scored like 225 at Finlandia, which was his most recent competition. Which of his two competitions really reflects what he's likely to do this season? Sergei's SB score is only 5 points higher than Jason's, and it's lower than both Nam's and Samarin's. So despite fact he took bronze at SA, is he really solidly top ten more than others?

charlotte14 said:

Nathan had 2 UR jumps at SA which they did not call for some reason.

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I'd say there were a few URs that were not called across the board for all 3 guys in their first GPs.

Beginning of the season though.. interesting to see the progress of these guys in their second GP.

Interspectator said:

7-8, Boyang and Kolyada...I'm not sure they actually belong so low on the rankings. They still have their record of medals (bronzes) and a high arsenal of tech that they are able to do. But they showed some trouble with execution on competition day. They could be anywhere from 8th-4th or higher. Their challenges may be a training/coaching one. Do they come to competition prepared?

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Boyang was at his first competition, while Kolyada has already won two challengers with higher scores.
We already know that both have the potential to be on a worlds podium, and we can also see that on their layouts. The difference between them: be inconsistent is Kolyada's normality, while about Jin is not the first time he begin the season like this.
Fun fact: Boyang started the 2016–2017 season with a 5th place on GP, and later has takes the bronze medal at worlds :yay:

I find strange to see Brezina at 4th. How much his score can be improved ? :scratch3:
He deserve to be on the ten now, like Messing and Cha, but he really can be there before the worlds begin ? It seem a short term evaluation.
I think that Brezina, Messing and Cha need to be lower. Cha may be the one that can improve more between them, but he may become more the 4th/5th of the next season, than the 4th of this one.

I also think that Zhou may be on the 10th place, like on a symbolic position. The UR question makes him the greatest "coin flip" of the season, but the jumps where there at SA and the layouts worth a ton of points.

sweetice said:

Boyang was at his first competition, while Kolyada has already won two challengers with higher scores.
We already know that both have the potential for be on a worlds podium, and we can also see that on their layouts. The difference between them: be inconsistent is Kolyada's normality, while about Jin is not the first time he begin the season like this.
Fun fact: Boyang started the 2016–2017 season with a 5th place on GP, and later has takes the bronze medal at worlds :yay:

I find strange to see Brezina at 4th. How much his score can be improved ? :scratch3:
He deserve to be on the ten now, like Messing and Cha, but he really can be there before the worlds begin ? It seem a short term evaluation.
I think that Brezina, Messing and Cha need to be lower. Cha may be the one that can improve more between them, but he may become more the 4th/5th of the next season, than the 4th of this one.

I also think that Zhou may be on the 10th place, like on a symbolic position. The UR question makes him the greatest "coin flip" of the season, but the jumps where there at SA and the layouts worth a ton of points.

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Yes, all good points. My ranking is definitely short-term, just to get the conversation started. I want everyone to post their own top 10 and their opinions on how it might move around. :thumbsup:

1. Yuzuru, I think he will remain here as long as he skates relatively well.
2. Nathan, he seems to be really adapting well to being on his own and showing a lot of growth and personality this season.
3. Shoma, his technique is questionable, I find his programs all the same really but he will be in the hunt for every competition.
4. Mikhail. If he could just get it together I’d have him #2. His jumps are large, beautiful, and flowing to match his lovely skating.
5. Boyang. Usually starts the second slow but builds to great end.
6-8. Jun/Keegan/Michal. Lower scoring potential than those above, but can definitely sneak up when mistakes are made at the top.
9-11. Aliev/Vonorov/Deniss. Aliev is fire when on but needs to start building a reputation. Deniss needs those quads. Uncle just needs to keep putting it out there at every chance.

Ooh, I wondered if someone would start a version of this thread for the guys.

1. Yuzuru Hanyu. Number one with a bullet. It’s hard to imagine anyone beating a truly clean Hanyu at the moment, though not impossible. Highest scoring potential we’ve seen so far — imagine what his marks at Helsinki would have been with cleaner skates. On top of that, he has a history of peaking at the right point in the season, so he goes into first as the one to beat.

2-3. Shoma Uno, Nathan Chen. Both have massive scoring potential that can rival Hanyu’s, but Shoma has yet to skate his best (and has some technique issues that may hold him back), while Nathan has yet to show his full potential. Even with that said, they’ve posted record scores this season and are locks for the podium at almost any competition, barring the revenge of the Sochi rinkmonster.

4-5. Michal Brezina, Junhwan Cha. Brezina is in for the GPF, with Cha very likely in as well, given how some of the names in the rest of the top ten performed in Finland. They’ve also been consistent, which is a minor miracle for the men. They both have issues making the podium outright — they generally need both a relatively clean showing and for other front runners to have errors — but they can very easily edge out bigger names for a medal. I’d rank Cha behind Brezina by a hair at the moment, but he could move up over the course of the season and easily finish inside the top ten at Worlds.

6. Mikhail Kolyada. Elvis has, mercifully, left the building, and the opening is no longer reserved for the traditional fall on the 4Lz. Kolyada has all he needs to succeed — huge jumps, fantastic skating skills, two programmes that suit him perfectly — and when he does succeed, he’s in the mix as much as the top three. Unfortunately, after two solid challenger events, we had Helsinki. If he rebounds at his next GP event, his stock should rise. Let’s hope Helsinki is an outlier.

7. Jin Boyang. Similar story to Kolyada, but without the showings at challengers; on the other hand, we know he’s a skater who has a rather slow start to the season and peaks much later. He also has much better programmes than in prior seasons and could be a real threat, but we’d need a clean skate to get a better sense of his scoring potential.

8. Keegan Messing. Relatively solid start to the season, but hasn’t yet shown the technical firepower of Boyang or the PCS potential of Kolyada. Has a very good shot of moving into the “Big 6” or final flight, along with Brezina and Cha, if he’s clean when others bobble.

9. Dmitri Aliev, Kazuki Tomono, etc. Overshadowed by the anchors on their national rosters and have yet to have a strong showing this season. It seems judges still want to give Aliev the scores, but after Zayaking his way to tenth in the short at WC18 and forgetting to do an Axel at Lombardia, he’s taken on memetic status for me.

10. Jason Brown. Has better PCS potential than Messing, in my opinion, at least in some components, but has yet to put together two clean skates. His scores have still been quite solid, despite major errors, and the 3A is no longer going to throw him out of contention. Worth mentioning for his potential to upset apple carts at US Nationals and possibly some Worlds predictions.

Circling the Top Ten
Daisuke Takahashi. Tanaka is best summed up by the moment after his WC18 free when he skated past his coach to exit the ice and had to confusedly double back; Tomono had a breakthrough at WC18 but has yet to deliver this season. Japanese Nats could be quite a show, and I would not be surprised to see a Hanyu-Uno-Daisuke team.

Alex Kraznoshon. Great GP showing while coming back from injury and just starting his senior career. Fantastic short programme that he seems to love. His performance chops are definitely starting to show more than with last year’s short. Extreme competitive drive and doesn’t tend to melt down in competition, which could make US Nationals fun.

Vincent Zhou. Same placement rank as Kraznoshon, but while Alex’s stock is going up, Zhou’s is plummeting so fast you can hear the slide-whistle.

Lazukin, Voronov. Not in danger of upsetting the Kolyada-Aliev apple cart, but they’re in the mix.

Roman Sadovsky. Third at ACI and 12th at SCI averages out to Voronov and Lazukin, but he definitely needs time to develop as a senior. Lots of potential, however.

Alexei Bychenko. He needs two clean skates and errors from the top men to place well, and he’s had a rough start so far, but ice is slippery and he cannot be counted out.

Deniss Vasiļjevs. The new scoring system could work to his advantage extremely well. Outside the top ten due to the fact that we haven’t seen enough of him yet this season.

Matteo Rizzo. Yeah, so, most underscored guy active in men’s, at least for his step sequences and his skating skills. He’s hungry, though, and he had one heck of a season last year in terms of almost super-human consistency. He may not podium, but his scores have been very close, and he could make the race for a spot in the top six very interesting.

Nathan: Short term, I would put Shoma ahead of Nathan. IdF and possible GPF, I am not very optimistic about his scoring going up a lot due to his Yale workloads and coaching situation. He has been sleep deprived and has to find time for training as the results of ”loads of loads of homework due next day”, which might contributed to his long recovery from the infection from the cold. He still coughed a lot during SkAm. I am not sure how it would impact his stamina long term. As to coaching, per Raf, FaceTime with Nathan is really hard, which will last not more than 5 to 10 minutes. I am sure he will be fine around Nationals after winter break when he finally can have some rest and some quality training back with Raf and his trainingmates.

Brezina: according to the IFS interview this past Sunday, Brezina said that Raf would like him to add second quad in his free for GPF.

Jin Boyang: He should be doing fine at IdF. What happened in Helsinki was a nerve/confidence and mileage issues to me.

bonita said:

Brezina: according to the IFS interview this past Sunday, Brezina said that Raf would like him to add second quad in his free for GPF.

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I hope he does. The judges are giving him the PCs he deserves so another quad will make him competitive especially when he might be facing Nathan again, Shoma, and Hanyu.

It is definitely early on for the ranking, but its a start to see how the men develop.

Top 3: Right now, the Top is Nathan, Shoma, and Hanyu compared to the others. They have yet to meet, but looking good at dominating each of their events. Each is very strong with positive high GOEs and PCs that rival each other.

If Nathan can balance Yale and skating and pull off 5 -6 quads, he can take this. Hanyu looks like does not plan any additional quads and maxed out. But we will see.

4 - 6: Brezina, Messing, Cha -- If they can be consistent and maintain high level. Then, they are in. Brezina seems to be the strongest among the 3 with high PCs and GOEs. The judges seem to like him.

7 -10: Boyang, Koylada, Aliev, Tomono, Zhou. Still to early to call, but at the moment, Koylada and Boyang are showing some stumbles, which I hope they can fix as they can be Top 5. Zhou needs to fix his Underrotation. If not, he will be at the bottom of the pile and outside Top 10. Aliev has potential, so we will see. Tomono needs to fix his programs and be more consistent.

I think Nathan being at Yale is not necessarily a detriment to his competitive skating. For one, he is likely to be super focused at practice, as time is more limited. More limited training time also means less potential for injury. And being at school, homework, exams etc - it gives him a new perspective to his skating. Possibly appreciating skating more and competitions are a bit of a break

So far, seems that Nathan along with Yuzuru and Shoma are in a class of their own.

Junhwan has done amazingly so far this season, along with Brezina. I would put Kolyada below them thus far.

Thanks for starting this thread, Specs!

This is really hard! But I'm going to try. I took the SB scores for SP/FS/ Overall as well as the Average overall scores (Thanks SkatingScores.com for doing the work for me) and tried to see if I could find any patterns. I also looked at the scoring trajectory of each of the men.

I'm actually going to do a top 12 because that's what determines two GP spots come Worlds.

1.) Yuzuru Hanyu - He got the highest season's best scores back at Finland. He won his first GP of the season for the first time in a while (or ever?). He looks well-trained. His 4Lo wasn't perfect, but his strong GOE for 3A and 4T/4S goes a LONG WAY.

2.) Nathan Chen -- He looked great at Skate America. He wasn't perfect, but that's okay at this point in the season. He seems to take a more measured approach as far as technical content and I think it's paying off. His quads look great and even his 3A is doing better.

3.) Shoma Uno -- He won both his Challenger event and Skate Canada, but he has not been without errors. This is why he was the silver medalist at 4CC/Olympics/Worlds last season. If he wants to finally grab gold at the big championship events (he's never won one!), then he's gotta clean up those errors. He also needs to not leave points on the table (i.e. StSq3, a few spin GOE etc.).

--- beyond the top 3 this is where things get super tricky! Like the AP College Football Poll, you are as good as you are in your last competition, so I'm going to go with that.

4.) Keegan Messing -- He won his Challenge event (Nebelhorn) and placed 2nd at Skate Canada. He has not been perfect, but he's done well enough on what he's landed to get really competitive scores. One thing of note is that according to SkatingScores.com, he has the highest mean scaled score (1.28), edging out Hanyu by .02. He has been working on the quad lutz, but he's shelved it for now and I think it's a good move. I expect he'll be at GPF.

5.) Jun-Hwan Cha -- He beat a ton of people between his Challenge event and his two GPs. The only people he didn't beat between the two events is Yuzuru, Keegan and Michel Brezina. Mikhail Kolyada beat him in Finlandia, but then Jun beat him at GP Finland (kind of an interesting mirror contrast there). In any case, he has scored fairly well. His placements makes it more difficult to make GPF but if we continue to see swings in the rankings, he may have enough to pull off a berth, which would be quite noteworthy given this is the first year he's had two GPs (and he didn't even originally have two spots in the first place).

6.) Mikhail Kolyada - At his best, he's just just a few points behind Shoma. But his scores has been going down over three competitions: From 274+ to 250+ and then, sadly 238+. He has arguably one of the best 3As and 3Zs in the biz. He can score extremely high GOE/PCS, but his consistency is all over the place. He could easily win Worlds or be barely top 10. However, I think he'll likely do better at RC (or I hope so), so this seems like a suitable place to put him for now.

7.) Michal Brezina - What a comeback story! Two silver medals on the GP, his first medals since 2014 and a likely berth in GPF, his first since 2011! His 4S is back with a vengeance and his other jumps look good as well.

8.) Alexander Samarin - He had a 25 point jump between his last Challenge event to Skate Canada. He has huge jumps and speed, which makes him look good to judges. On the other hand, he's not great with spins or steps and he hasn't been the most consistent in the past. However, his scoring trajectory has gone upward, especially compared to his countrymen, so I got to put him here for now.

9.) Nam Nguyen - Nam won his Challenger event in the U.S., but with a relatively low score of 213.52. However he's been on an upward trajectory scoring wise. He had a slightly lower score (due to a poor SP) at Skate America, placing 6th. But then he jumped by nearly 30 points at Skate Canada to place 5th. He has some UR issues, but his overall skating has improved.

10.) Jason Brown - This was a tough one to place and arguably he could have easily been lower or even outside the top 12. But I put him here for the following reasons. 1.) He still scores well in a lot of areas. The judges/technical panel have been much more stingy on spin/step levels/GOE, which favors Jason who has been doing well in both. His PCS remains among the highest (his average GOE mark is the 5th highest out of all the men). But yeah, he still needs to jump and it's been hit or miss, namely cause he's getting used to new jumping technique from the folks at TCC. However, his FS at SCI had signs of good things to come and his overall score has been trending upward. His average score is 9th among the men, so while he's inconsistent for him, he still hasn't had the drastic swings in scores we've seen with other men.

11.) Sergei Voronov - He placed 3rd at Skate America, why do I have him so low? Namely cause his scores have been on a downward trajectory relatively to the folks above him. His scores dropped by 13 points between his Challenger (Ondrej Nepala Trophy) and Skate America. However, he does have a medal at both his events, so arguably I could put him higher.

12.) Dmitri Aliev -- I could have easily swapped him with Jason for 9th or even put him in 8th, but like Mikhail, his scores are trending downward overall. He did the opposite of Samarin -- his score dropped by 25 points between his two challengers. He seem to have issues with a 3A to the point where they forgot to put one in the free skate (and he barely fit in a 2A in his FS at Finlandia. However, he has the potential to score well.

Other people to watch
Boyang Jin - He did OK in the SP, but really fared poorly in the FS (28th SB; WHOA) to the point he has the 19th best SB's score. However he's only had one competition and I expect he'll improve at IdF. Slow starts to the season seem typical at this point.
Deniss Vasiljevs - He didn't do that well at Japan Open; he has a few issues on jumps. But it shouldn't be an indicator of what's to come, as we saw with Nathan. We'll see how he does at NHK this week! EDITED: I didn't realize he was at Ice Star Minsk! It doesn't count toward ISU Season's best, so that's why I didn't see it. In any case, he had jump issues in the SP but then won the FS with a solid 151+score and did a fully-rotated 4T and two 3As. Still a few mistakes, but a positive trajectory!
Andrei Lauzkin - He can score quite well as his Finland SP. But he can also drop like a rock as his FS from the same competition showed.
Kevin Aymoz - He has a beautiful FS that is compelling to watch. His consistency has improved from his junior days, but he tends to make errors that can be quite costly.
Kazuki Tomono - He placed 8th at Worlds, but he hasn't placed well at either his Challenger event or Skate Canada. He certainly has the ability to do better. .
Roman Sadovsky - He medaled at his Challenger Event, but then place 12th out of 12 at Skate Canada. He has a lot of potential.
Matteo Rizzo - Like Jason he has some beautiful basic skating and can score well without a quad. He did do a 4T at Skate America, so that's good to see!
Daniel Samohin - At this best, he can impress. But he's more likely to not skate at his best, sadly. SC showed a glimpse of what could happen when he can put everything together.
Vincent Zhou - He almost medaled at Skate America and U.S. Classic. He can score big if he can fully rotate those jumps.
Morisi Kvitelashvili - He medaled at his last Challenger (Finlandia) and he has the potential to hit his jumps.
Daisuke Takahashi - Out of sight, out of mind, but he's there competing in Japanese qualifying competitions and he seem to be on an upward trajectory. Can't wait to see how he places nationally.

(Goodness, did I miss anybody?!)

This took FOREVER to crunch some sort of ranking and be able to articulate why in writing. That's my take. I'm going to sleep now, LOL. Let's see how this looks after NHK.

ETA: I said I'd sleep like 20 minutes go, but I kept finding more holes in my analysis. I'm really going to go to sleep now.

Mrs.P, you write such a comprehensive and well thought-out summary!