Sweden warmed up for its quarter-final against Latvia by completing its fourth straight win in Group A. However, the defending champion had to work hard to overcome a German team heading for a relegation playoff against Norway.

It took 50 minutes for Sweden to find a way through the German defence. A couple of power play goals changed the picture, and it finished 3-0.

Otto Stenberg, whose shot was tipped in for the opening goal, admitted that it was concern that once again his team left it late to get the job done. "We want to score early, then we can play more relaxed," he said. "But to do that, we need to put our guys in front of the goalie to help us score. We need to do that earlier in the next game."

While the Swedes roll on to the playoffs buoyed by back-to-back shut-outs, Germany can take heart from improved performances in the last two games.

"We know we can do it now," said captain Edwin Tropmann. "I don't really know what went wrong in the first game but we've proved ourselves now and that gives us confidence to play Norway."

There was relatively little riding on this game and both teams took the opportunity to give minutes to their back-up goalies. Nico Pertuch started for Germany, with Leon Willerscheid given a well-earned rest after a few busy days. Sweden handed Melker Thelin his first action of the tournament in place of Noah Erliden. Pertuch impressed throughout, finishing with 25 saves. Thelin made 14 stops for a shut-out.

Local hockey fans also did their bit to make it into something of an occasion, with local schools visiting in large numbers to give their pupils a chance to experience World Championship action in their local rink. The standing section behind one goal at the Raiffeisen Arena was packed with youngsters in a crowd of 2,653. That’s comfortably the biggest crowd seen in Ajoie so far in this competition. The organisers long ago surpassed their target of attracting at least 10,000 spectators to games in Porrentruy.

Unfortunately the game itself was less impressive than the attendance. Understandably, both teams had their minds on Thursday. Later this week, weightier matters will be decided here when Sweden faces Latvia in its quarter-final and Germany begins its battle for survival against Norway.

The action soon settled into a pattern similar to Sweden’s game against the Czechs. The Tre Kronor enjoyed plenty of possession and created more chances but struggled to find a cutting edge. The biggest moments of the first period came late when a Swedish power play saw Tom Willander’s short side wrister drew a strong glove save from Pertuch. Moments later, Otto Stenberg got close to the net but clipped the piping as he looked for the top shelf.

"We knew that it was going to be a hard game but after the first period we saw that we could do something in this game," added Tropmann. "It's just sad that we couldn't get any points."

That was the story of much of the game: intermittent Swedish threat, and solid German resistance. It wasn’t until midway through the third period that we finally had a breakthrough. Not for the first time in this tournament, it came on the Swedish power play. Willander moved the play wide for Stenberg, who came in off the boards to fire in a wrister from the right-hand circle. David Edstrom was in place on the slot, and his touch took the puck away from Pertuch to give the Swedes the lead.

"We had a lot of chances through the whole game," Stenberg said. "They had a really, really good goalie but finally we found a way to score."

With three minutes left, another power play goal put the outcome beyond reach. Willander added to his earlier assist with a well-placed wrister through traffic to double Sweden's lead. Gustaf Kangas then wrapped it up with an empty-net tally.

"We're happy," concluded Stenberg. "We played four good games here and now it's time to regroup and get ready for the playoffs."