The 12^th-seeded Danes had taken huge heart from their first victory over the Canadians, but they were steamrollered by Slovakia in their final Group A match in Helsinki and saw their opponents take over in the fourth and final qualifying place for Thursday's quarter-finals by virtue of a superior goal difference of four as both teams finished with four wins and three defeats.

The Slovakians, surprise bronze medallists at this year’s Beijing Winter Games, were supercharged to success by two opening period goals from their captain, Tomas Tatar, with Pavol Regenda also scoring two and the others coming from Simon Nemec, Juraj Slafkovsky and Mislan Rosandic.

Joachim Blichfeld had the lone goal for a tired-looking Denmark team, who will miss the World Championship quarter-finals for a fifth consecutive year.

Making matters worse for Denmark, Mathias Bau, who had scored the game-winner against Canada, was sent off for slashing at the end of the opening period.

Slovakia's quarter-final opponents will be Finland, who finished top of Group B after winning their last match 3-0 against Czechia.

Eighth-seeded Switzerland - who also inflicted defeat on the reigning champions in their earlier qualifying match - earned a 4-3 win over fourth seeds Germany after a penalty shoot-out which confirmed them top of the group with seven wins out of seven, including one after overtime.

That means Switzerland will meet third seeds United States in the quarter-finals on Thursday (May 26).

The Swiss won the shootout by virtue of goals from Nico Hischier and Damien Riat with their first two shots, after which goalie Reto Berra closed the door and stopped all four German shooters.

Despite being beaten in two of their first six Group B matches, the United States finished off their qualifying campaign today with a 4-2 win over Norway, having taken a 2-0 lead in the first period.

Germany, who took second place in Group A despite today’s loss, will meet Czechia in the knock-out stages.

In Group B, Sweden, who last year failed to qualify for the quarter-finals at this tournament for the first time since the current format was introduced, made sure there would be no repeat of that situation as they beat Latvia 1-0 in their concluding Group B match thanks to a goal from William Nylander.

That left them two points clear at the top but Finland's final leapfrog over them means they will next face Canada, who concluded their patchy qualifying with a 7-1 win over France that earned them third place in Group A.