Today Sweden will face Great Britain, on Sunday it will be Slovakia and on Monday they will play their last group game against the Russian team.
Three matches thus remain and the situation is roughly as follows: Three victories will suffice for advancement, otherwise it will not work.
Right now Sweden stands on three points and they were taken through a 7-0 victory against Switzerland.
- It will be a nail-biter, but I think Sweden will take the nine points that are left to play for and that Sweden will catch up with Slovakia, says Ekman.
1985 last missed
The top four in each group advance and in the last five championships, the group fours have had from 10 to 14 points.
The average score for the fours during those championships is 11.8.
The last time Sweden finished outside the top eight in an ice hockey World Cup was in 1937, but the format and number of participating countries have varied.
1985 was the last time they did not move on from an initial group game and since the current format with two groups was introduced in 1992, Tre Kronor has never failed to move on from the group.