I think they always hope they can get a set of jumps from someone (3 different quads, one of them senior quad) which would put them in the podium mix. After all is said and done, it is not unreasonable goal on a current technical level. Unfortunately, everyone who reaches for it, breaks in the process. I think they relaxed that requirement down to stable with two lower quads when Semenenko nearly took himself out trying to jump 4F to complete his aspired for 3 quad set…
But I expect Samarin, Erokhov, Ignatov, Lutfullin and Yablokov all fight to show the 3-quad set, and probably Semenenko and Kondratyuk as well starting next season.
It’s different than women, of course, because there is no obvious jumping prodigy in Russia, but with Kagiyama and Malinin coming in next quad, they will continue looking for 3 quads. I don’t think they can do anything else.