I'm going to go out on a limb and include juniors in my power ranking. The purpose of the ranking, after all, is to identify potential talents for 2022 and rank who is likely to skate the best up until then. This is my personal opinion of if we had a competition right now, no restrictions, who would get the highest score.
1. Alina Zagitova - I wouldn't call her a favorite for anything other than Worlds 2019. But the junior's quads translating into seniors which is 1 year in the future is still dubious. Alina has shown she can weather changes to her body, and maintain a level, that will necessitate the current juniors to skate clean with quad(s) and get PCS boost to beat.
2. Alexandra Trusova - Quad, quad, quad, that is all. I will be hesitant to move her to the first spot until she executes quads at the senior level and shown that they can last. But I have a feeling she will be number 1 soon.
3. Rika Kihira - mainly based on her performance at the NHK. But her 3A seems quite consistent and is more useful than any one quad since it can be done in the short. Her PCS will go up too if she puts in a few more NHK like performances.
4. Alena Kostornaia - Beautiful skating skills and incredibly consistent too. She NEEDS a triple axel though.
5. Anna Shcherbakova - quads also. and PCS are not too bad also, and triple jumps that will get high GOEs
6. Satoko Miyahara - Jumps are small, but curiously has been getting more GOEs this season. At big events urs tend to be overlooked which is good for Satoko. But I can't see judges letting her tiny jumps win a major event, and they do hinder her PCS score also. And her tiny jumps preclude her from trying 3A/4s.
7. Elizaveta Tuktymysheva - She is looking stronger than ever. Jumps amazing, maybe get a 3F and second 3A. She has a low PCS ceiling (68) though. Really nothing she can do about that.
8. Evgenia Medvedeva - With her e jumps and URs being called, and her jumps more inconsistent than ever, Evgenia is in a precarious position. Her performance at her next GP will be very important for her to save her PCS cushion, if she bombs, I think moving forward her PCS will drop considerably. Her PCS is already a lot less than Alina...if perfectly clean probably a 72 compared to 75 for Alina.
9. Carolina Kostner - Judges will throw PCS to her, she will get the highest PCS at any event she goes to, even if she bombs. She will probably have an easier program than most, and make more mistakes on average, but it's not like no one else will make mistakes either]. Respect to her though, her longevity is unparalleled, especially in this day and age.
10. Kaori Sakamoto - relatively consistent but has got a low ceiling, nothing too special
Also notice the country diversity here...not much. In a real event there can only be max 3 Russians. Such is the nature of figure skating.
Also - many things can be very different depending whether ISU would raise seniors age or not. There can be tons of hungry for medals and powerful 15 y.o. skaters you know nothing about now (Valieva, Usacheva, Kanysheva, Liu etc. - who knows in what form they will be). Also, about Zagitova - I am almost sure that she will retire after year or two. Her body type does not look promising for maintaning long career and she lacks ambitiousness and motivation. It's even more apparent judging by recent Eteri interview talking about how Alina was trying to quit skating this summer already. It's too stressful for her and I think she deserved normal life for a change.
