lol Yes, indeed, this CoC was a d
éjà vu from last season's 4CC with Patrick skating poorly in the short program but coming back strong in the free skate and winning the competition. You would think it's easier for him to do like eight or nine jump passes than three. lol Hopefully he'll figure out soon enough what it is that almost always prevents him from delivering in the SP and fix the problem because a mediocre short negatively affects the overall impression of the judges and his marks in the free.
I don't know if we should attribute his recent successful 3A attempts to his new coaching team because he did land quite a few really beautiful axels last season as well. I personally will wait a little longer before I can safely say that he has fixed his axel and this jump is now as reliable as his quad toe (remember he missed the 3A in the SP at CoC). But Patrick's finally got a technical coach again after the Kathy intermission and that should boost his confidence and make him more consistent on the jumps.
Never ever had I imagined that one day Patrick would land in the lap of Marina and I feel she hadn't either. lol She has told a Russian reporter that Patrick is too new to her for her to have had time to develop a training strategy for the months to come or decide what it is that he should do differently.
Forgot to say in other posts that I think he has brilliant choreography in the long program and superior to his Chopin medley in terms of transitions. Just my very humble opinion, of course.