The Voice: Season 17's Winner Will Be...

And the winner of The Voice Season 17 iiis... probably going to be one of the 10 contestants included in this countdown.

2. Joana Martinez (Team Gwen)

Fifteen isn't just the age of this former Team Blake standout, it's also the level to which she can turn up the volume on her impossibly powerful pipes. So, although Ricky Duran emerged from his Knockout with Joana the winner, she came away from it every bit as much a contender.

3. Jake Hoot (Team Kelly)

I'd liked Jake in the Blinds. I'd liked him again in the Battles. But his Knockout rendition of "Cover Me Up" left me saying, "Whoa! Who is this guy?" He was so present, so captivating, with a voice as big as he is tall (dude's 6'6"!). I felt like I was hearing him for the first time.

5. Rose Short (Team Gwen)

Not only is Rose Season 17's resident Ms. Congeniality and a belter par excellence, she's blessed with an uncanny ability to make listeners feel as if her voice is embracing and lifting them up through the screen. What's more, she somehow seems to blossom more brilliantly with each performance.

1. Ricky Duran (Team Blake)

Whatever's on your checklist for a potential winner, Ricky's got it. A voice that's as flexible as a bendy straw? Check. An ability to control that voice as easily as we do our remotes? Check. Stage presence that makes for a performance that's as compelling to watch as to listen to? Check and mate.

8. Alex Guthrie (Team Legend)

After being pitted against Team Kelly faves Hello Sunday in the Knockouts, Alex admitted, "I'm sweating a bit." But he needn't have. He'd deployed with such ease his spectacularly soulful voice on his cover of Sam Smith's "I'm Not the Only One" that his Steal by John was a lock.

7. Katie Kadan (Team Legend)

In the dictionary next to the word "powerhouse" is Katie's picture. So massive are her vocals, they could blast the wax right out of your ears. And she isn't just a kickass singer, either; she's also a born entertainer, as much fun to watch as to listen to. In short, a total star.

6. Marybeth Byrd (Team Legend)

Not since Season 13 runner-up Addison Agen have I heard a contestant so beautifully convey with her voice the notion that we aren't listening to a singer perform a song so much as we're listening to a human being open her heart. The four-chair-turn's spot in the Finals is as good as secured.

9. Cali Wilson (Team Blake)

Such a force to be reckoned with is Cali that, even after Marina Chello sang a freakin' lung out during their Knockout faceoff, Blake chose to keep the former over the latter. Cali's understated combination of the emotional and the ethereal, it seems, has the power to bewitch.

4. Max Boyle (Team Kelly)

Despite Max's excellent Blind Audition, I thought he was toast when John pitted him against Katie Kadan in the Knockouts. And though John did choose Katie as the winner, Max's gorgeous, emotional cover of Billie Eilish's "when the party's over" got him stolen by Kelly. (Whew!)

10. Hello Sunday (Team Kelly)

The tweens are so adorable that it can be tempting to write them off as just adorable. But they've also got serious chops, harmonize like a dream and take direction like old pros. And, since The Voice tends to skew young winnerwise, their age could be an asset, not a liability.