Orihara & Royer won both the RD and the FD at Minto; and if I remember correctly, I believe she will be eligible to compete by Junior Worlds. The only teams O&R did not go up against at Minto were Bronsard & Bouraguia and Fisher & Malette-Paquette. We'll get to see how they do in their second events next week. D'Alessandro & Waddell are competitive in the free. Their question mark is the RD.
And really, the only thing the #2 team is expected/needs to do is to finish at least tenth, which, combined with L/L's hoped-for podium placement would get another spot next year.
At least 10th. OK, let's run the JGP Season's Best numbers.
168.12 Ushakova & Nekrasov (RUS)
166.52 Lajoie & Lagha (CAN)
165.63 Nguyen & Kolesnik (USA)
161.67 Shevchenko & Eremenko (RUS)
161.00 Khudaberdieva & Nazarov (RUS) (That's three Russian teams & therefore, the max at Junior Worlds, though someone else, of course, could make the team).
154.17 Kazakova & Reviya (GEO)
148.51 Gropman & Somerville (USA)
142.96 Demougeot & Le Mercier (FRA)
142.29 Popova & Byelikov (UKR)
141.60 Fisher & Mallette-Paquette (CAN)
Top-ten teams from last year's Junior Worlds not yet with a score on the table:
The Greens (USA)
Lagouge & Rahier (FRA)
Unlikely, as they are skating seniors, but not impossible:
Carreira & Ponomarenko (USA--though, of course, max of three U.S. teams)
Also France has a new team, Lopareva & Brissaud (she skated for Russia last season), who will likely be eligible by Junior Worlds; but France can only send two teams.
So . . . once again, as I said last season, I think the teams looking to make the top ten really need to be looking at defeating Popova & Byelikov. You don't know what's gonna really happen there with the U.S. or France; but you know you're going up against P&B for UKR. And they are just kind of a hover-around-tenth-place kind of team.