Lol. Maybe I should go AP College Football poll and do top 25. Loved everyone’s analysis!
I decided to go with top 24, since that's the ranking ISU uses for GP standings. So here they are. Please excuse typos.
My power rankings list updated.
1.) Yuzuru Hanyu - Hold w/reservation. This was the tale of two segments. Hanyu SMASHED the SP. But unfortunately an injury sustained in practice made for a tough FS. The injury puts a question on his competition status for GPF and Nationals, but it's clear at his best, he's still tops. I'm going to hold him here until we see hold Nathan does next week.
2.) Nathan Chen – Hold. We’ll see him at Internationaux de France.
3.) Shoma Uno – Hold. See him at GPF.
4.) Jun-Hwa Cha – (+1) – His GP placements are deceptive. His place in GPF is still uncertain, but honestly he had the unfortunate circumstance of being placed in deep and high-scoring events. He has been relatively consistent this season, medaling at at all his Challenger and GPF events and his scores are higher than Voronov and Brezina.
5.) Michel Brezina – (+1): Hindsight I should have moved him up after he beat Kolyada at Helsinki, so doing it now. Again showing relative consistency compared to other men in the field. See you at GPF!
6.) Sergei Voronov (-1): Only cause I should have moved Brezina a few weeks back. Next up, GPF!
7.) Morisi Kvitelashvili: NEW - He increased six places and 43+ points (!) from Skate America to get silver at Rostelecom Cup. He really showed that he can score the big numbers – he has the sixth highest score in the SP. The question is whether he can remain consistent (this has vibes of his breakout performance from Euros a few years ago).
8.) Alexander Samarin -He has a shot at the GPF at IdF
9.) Kazuki Tomono (NEW) – Bronze at Rostelecom Cup with +18 improvement in his overall score. He did beat Kolyada, but barely, so this is where I put him for now.
10.) Mikhail Kolyada (-3): He continues to under perform and his score of 225 is nearly 50 points off his season’s best from his very first competition of the season. I’m hoping we’ll see improvements at Russian Nationals. And he’ll have time now that GPF is out of the picture. The dip is so much lower cause he almost got bronze.
11. ) Keegan Messing (– 7)He did not have the performance he wanted here, sadly- he dropped 3 places and scored 45 points lower than SCI. Given the struggles of the field, he had an opportunity to shine, but it was not to be – he scored GPF looks to be out, so we will see him at Canadian Nationals.
12.) Nam Nguyen (-1): Namely due to everyone else moving up. Leaving him in my top 12 due to his strong overall score and skate at Skate Canada. Canadian Nationals is next.
--- additional rankings below.
13.) Jason Brown: After five GPs, his scores from SCI – SP aside – hold up fairly well. He ranks 9th among the men in average scores (and his scores are actually not that much lower than either Brezina or Voronov, who qualified for GPF—but his SCI placement, like Jun, was a product of a deeper field). All the changes in technique make him pretty uncertain still. We’ll see where he is at IdF.
14.) Matteo Rizzo— GP medal after the field struggles.
15.) Dmitri Aliev – Can he put his NHK struggles behind him at IdF? He is capable of scoring big, but his inconsistency really can kill him.
16.) Daniel Grassl- Like his countryman Rizzo, Grassl is doing double duty skating both in the JGP and in senior Challenger competitions. Grassl recently won the Inge Solar Memorial, landing both a 4Z and 4Lo. He has the potential to post big numbers (like he did in the short program) but it’s yet to be seen what his consistency is like.
17.) Roman Sandovsky – He medaled at his recent Challenger event, finishing second behind Grassl. He’s still hit-and-miss on the big elements but he’s really positioning himself for one of those Canadian world team spots.
18.) Kevin Aymoz – Another shot to wow us (and perhaps up his scores/placement) at IdF
18.) Boyang Jin – We’ll see if he’ll improve at IdF. I expect he will but this is the men and daring to make any clear predictions seems to be a big ask.
19.) Vincent Zhou – He gets another shot at the technical panel at Tallinn Trophy. His GP placements have not been bad (4th and 5th) but mainly cause the fields were not super deep, relatively speaking.
20.) Andrei Lauzkin – He had a very good free skate after a poor short program at Rostelecom Cup. He, at this point, has a good outside shot at making the Russian world team, but he needs to be more consistent.
21.) Nic Nadeau – He just finished off the podium at Finlandia, but his score is not bad. We’ll see where he is at IdF
22.) Daisuke Takahashi – He’s focused on simply competing nationally, but his finesse and polish along with progress on his technical elements make me feel comfortable putting on this poll.
23.) Daniel Samohin – He showed at Skate Canada SP that he can score and do well with a clean skate, but then had his trademark struggles in the free. He gets to show progress at IdF.
24.) Alexander Majorov – He has shown brilliance in the SP of both his GP events, even being in medal contention after his SP at Rostelecom Cup. He continues to struggle in his free skate.
Other skaters to watch for.
Deniss Vasiljevs - He underperformed greatly at NHK to the point where he isn't on the top 24 for now. He'll be at IdF and I expect improvement.
Paul Fentz – He surprised with a top 6 finish at Rostelecom Cup SP. He struggled in the SP, but he certainly has improved from last season.
Keiji Tanaka – He medaled at his Challenger event, but had a so-so performance at his GP event. We’ll see him at IdF.
Artur Dmitrev – He’s going for the 4A and 3Z-3F, but the novel combos isn’t quite paying off, at least not at Rostelecom Cup, where he placed 11th out of 12 skaters. But he medaled at Nebelhorn and is capable of doing well.
Brendan Kerry – Like so many of the men, he’s had flashes of brilliance, including a 80+ SP at SCI.
Julian Zhi Jie Yee – He is introducing an 4S, which he’s landed a few times and surprised everyone with a 3rd place SP at Skate America. But like many of the men, he’s not quite consistent and that’s kept him from high overall scores and placement ultimately.
Alexei Krasnozhon – He’s the reigning JGPF champion, but he’s dealt with injury recently. However he is making gradual progress and could be a bigger fact later this season or next season.
Sota Yamamoto – Like Alexei, Sota’s been on a long journey back from injury. He won the Asian Open Trophy and has shown signs of progress, though he’s not quite consistent on the big jumps yet.
