Askarov's mechanics look broken. It's very strange.
This might sound crazy, but I think they should check his eyes. He was repeatedly beaten by long shots through a maze of bodies, where he clearly was unable to track the puck. His reactions showed that he had no idea where the puck was. Size and lack of quickness are not his problems, he is cat-quick! True, its always hard to track the puck when you are screened, but the look on his face suggested that he had no idea where the puck was. Maybe he needs contact lenses.
Overall, what killed the team was the inability to kill penalties. One obvious antidote is to stop taking brain-dead penalties, but the other is better coaching. Against Canada, their deadliest weapon on the power play was No. 27, who was a left-handed shooter from the right side of the circle. Romanov could have prevented his goal by cheating to his right to take away his only scoring option, the right corner of the net. Romanov left it wide open, and No. 27 scored with a long-range wrist shot, which should never happen. Penalty killing killed Russia.