The problem of Sochi was exactly the same as for Vancouver, too many top stars in a team like Russia, this is never a good thing, the Russians are famous for their great skills and love for the pure play and scoring, if there one thing that can irritate Russian top stars hockey players is to play collectively.
And the rest of the team ? they need to have only one leader not so many, in the end no one knew who to follow if Ovechkin or Malkin, Kovalchuk or Datsyuk or even "his majesty I am the best and the only one" Radulov etc.. there were too many small groups within the team and add to that a coach like Zinetula and consequently you had the most expected outcome in Sochi
Now it is clearly different, even Kovalchuk is playing for Team that´s something unimaginable few times back. Znarok know how to handle these players, he is the best thing that happened to Russian hockey