You can look at yesterday's embarrassment in two ways:
1) Anecdotally, this was a weak team in comparison to last year's team, mainly because Russia just had terrible luck with injuries. Some years are lucky, and others are not. On the one hand there were the guys from the NHL - Datsyuk, Yakupov, and Nichushkin who would have been better than players who were out there had they not been injured. From the KHL, there were several forwards from CSKA and other teams who have been better than Tikhonov, Anisimov, Shirokov and so on, most notably Radulov, who was the 2nd best forward in Sochi, right behind Datsyuk. On defense, there was Zaitsev, Denisov, Biryukov, and Medvedev who would have been on the blue line if they had not been injured. I'm not suggesting that we would have won, but we probably would have had a better showing with those guys on the ice.
2) Even though significant upgrades have been made in the last few years, Russia still lags behind the countries you mentioned, particularly Canada, Sweden and Finland, in youth development. To put it succinctly, Russians haven't cared enough to make the efforts and sacrifices that would be necessary to have a modern hockey development program. The Government, through the RHF, has mandated some upgrades, but those are always deflected by corrupt local officials, and there is no evidence of support in local communities and neighborhoods, as you have in other countries. There are a few small islands of hockey youth development excellence in the vast sea of indifference, such as Traktor in Chelyabinsk, but mostly dormancy.
While the Soviets were once the personification of skill, ability, conditioning and team play, today's Russian teams are almost the exact opposite. The only notable players are the genetic anomalies, like Malkin and Ovechkin, who excel based on sheer physical talent. Yes, the defensemen are disgraceful, but the situation with forwards is nearly as bad. A lot of it can be legitimately blamed on the fact that hockey in Russia is an "export sport." Its not for the Russian people, only for the Calgary oil men who reap the benefit of the export crop of hockey players. That works in Finland, but not in Russia.
After saying all that, it is possible, with the advent of the KHL and MHL, that the wheels have been set in motion for significant growth in the quantity and quality of hockey development that could put Russia in a competitive situation within the next 5 years. On the RHF website, it noted that President Putin has "requested" that the RHF put together a program to make Russia a legitimate contender for Gold at the 2022 Olympics. If the resources, commitment and effort was harnessed for such a project, the situation could dramatically change in a fairly short time, if not by 2022.
