[Sylvanfan]

The way things have fallen, Sweden has tended to end up in a pool like Canada is in this year where really you have one other hockey nation (These days Canada, Sweden, USA, Russia, and Finland are pretty much your consistent top 5 systems, the Czechs have fallen off in the past 20 years), plus one of the lesser hockey nations who had a good showing the previous, but lost all their players from last years team and don't have a very strong team this year. Plus two other fringe teams. So you get one game where you get a bit of a test, and maybe a bit of a scare by a team who has a hot goaltender.

But this can be a problem when you go up against the teams from the other pool who have had to play much more competitive games in their pool, and it's a different speed than what you've seen all tournament.

Another factor is that it seems like the Czechs, Russians, Slovaks, and to an extent the Germans seem to have have more hostility against each other given the history of those countries. It seems like the Czechs still come after Russia every year no matter what the state of the team is. So you don't have anyone outside of the top 5 counties who come out with that extra desire to beat the Swedes beyond normal competition.