HALIFAX, Canada (AFP) - Thibault Monnet has scored the winner early in the third as Switzerland upset reigning Olympic gold medallist Sweden 4-2 in the preliminary round of the World Hockey Championships.

Sweden, who wore their throwback jerseys from the 1957 world championships, looked anything but golden Wednesday at the Colisee arena on Wednesday.

They dressed backup goalie Stefan Liv, who registered a shutout against France but allowed four goals on 24 shots against Switzerland.

In other preliminary round games Wednesday, Teemu Selanne's second period powerplay goal stood as the winner as Finland defeated Slovakia 3-2 at the Halifax Metro Centre arena.

Morten Ask and Mats Zuccarello Aasen scored third period goals as Norway rallied to beat Germany 3-2, while Alexi Kalyuzhny had a goal and an assist as Belarus beat France 3-1 in the other late game.

It had been 15 years since the Swiss defeated the Swedes in the Worlds. The last time was 1993 in Munich by a 6-4 score.

Andres Ambuhl, Thierry Paterlini and Beat Forster also scored for Switzerland who are the only undefeated team in Group A.

Fredrik Warg and Patric Hornqvist scored for Sweden who suffered their first loss of the tournament.

Jonas Hiller made 28 saves for the Swiss who led 2-0 after the first period.

Help is on the way for Sweden as New York Rangers all-star goaltender Henrik Lundqvist is expected to arrive later this week.

With their victory Wednesday, Finland lead Group C with eight points.

"We had good penalty killing and good goaltending tonight," Finnish coach Doug Sheddon said. "It was a win we had to work hard for, especially in the third period."

The Finns were buoyed by the arrival of Montreal Canadiens captain Saku Koivu on Wednesday. Koivu watched the game but did not dress.

Koivu became available after his Canadiens were eliminated from the NHL playoffs on the weekend.

"It was a disappointment," he said of his end to the NHL season. "I needed 48 hours to get over that. I felt I still had enough left to come here and play a week and a half."

Finland was outshot 39-31 but led 3-2 at the end of the second period.

Finland's Hannes Hyvonen was thrown out of the game in the third period after being given a five minute charging penalty.

Sheddon said there are things his team needs to work on. He will tinker with his lines for the next game, likely putting Selanne with Koivu and maybe Koivu's brother Mikko with Olli Jokinen.

"If you have a guy like Selanne got to have a guy there who can get him the puck," Sheddon said.

Koivu said he doesn't care where he plays as long as he can contribute.

"We have four or five centres, so one of us has to play on the wing and that might be me," Koivu said.

Norway beat Germany is a tense physical game which held special significance for the players on both sides.

It was on May 8, 1945, that Norway was liberated after five years of occupation by Nazi forces.

"Germany invaded Norway and we will never forget about that," said Norway's Ask. "Today is our independence day from Germany."

Germany on the other hand was unhappy because of a decision to suspend defenceman Jason Holland which was announced just hours prior to the match against Norway.

Holland, who has dual German/Canadian citizenship, was ruled ineligible to play because not enough time has passed between the time he started playing in the German domestic league and these World Championships.

"We had nothing to do with that," Ask said. "They tried to play us physical. We knew we had to win to avoid the relegation round."

Tournament organizers announced Germany will not have to forfeit any results from their previous games because of Holland's ineligibility.

Also the Germans were told Wednesday that forward Florian Busch could continue to play in the tournament despite a request by the World Anti-doping Agency to have him suspended for refusing to submit to a doping test at his home earlier this year.

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