curious putting the best two teams in the same bracket. looks like the round robin will be much like this year....one stiff challenge in the Finns, a couple of moderate challenges in the Czechs and Swiss, and a bunch of other games to fight off jetlag, work out the kinks and send the wives and gf's shopping...
They didn't put the two best teams into the same bracket, they put the 1st with the 3rd ranked team and the 2nd with the 4th. Groups are generally based on the world rankings, and Russia is still ahead of Finland in those.
They definately mixed things in a weird way though. Normally you have 1 and 4 in one group and 2 and 3 in the other. Followed by 5+8 and 6+7 added to them. This continues afterwards with 9+12 and 10+11, followed by 13+16 and 14+15.
If you list the two groups next to each other, the teams should meander by ranking, leading to 1+4+5+8+9+12+13+16 and 2+3+6+7+10+11+14+15. It appears they switched 9 and 10 this time around, because 10 is Germany and 14 is France, meaning both hosts would have been in the same group. They also switched 1 and 2 for some reason, leading to Canada being in the French group and Russia being in the German one.