Defending champion Sweden gets 5th win in OT over Slovakia

HERNING, DENMARK» Defending champion Sweden prevailed over Slovakia 4-3 in overtime for its fifth straight win at the ice hockey world championship on Saturday.

Denmark kept alive its dream of advancing to the quarterfinals by beating South Korea 3-1, and Latvia remained in contention by downing Olympic runnerup Germany 3-1.

In a game of two winless teams, Austria shut out Belarus 4-0 to survive in the top division. Belarus will be relegated.

Mika Zibanejad scored the winner for Sweden on a power play with 41 seconds remaining.

Trailing 3-1, Marek Daloga and Ladislav Nagy scored for Slovakia to force overtime.

Veteran Frans Nielsen, Jesper Jensen and Nichlas Hardt scored for host Denmark, setting off raucous celebrations by the home fans in the Jyske Bank Boxen arena.

“It’s gonna be a hard fight out there on Tuesday,” Nielsen said, referring to playing Latvia in the last group game.

Kisung Kim scored his fourth goal in six matches but South Korea remained, pointless with a game left.

Sweden leads Group A in Copenhagen with 14 points. Russia has 10, one more than Switzerland before the two meet later Saturday. The Czech Republic has nine points, one more than Slovakia. Austria has four.

Denmark jumped to second in Group B in Herning with 11 points. Canada has 10, Latvia nine, the same as Finland. Finland and Canada played late Saturday. The United States leads the group with 13 points.