The Swedes cruised to a 5-0 victory over Slovakia on opening night 24 hours earlier, and the lack of rest seemed evident during a goalless first period, yet they forced more efforts on goal than their opponents, who pushed Finland hard in a 2-1 loss yesterday afternoon.
But five minutes into the second period, it was Austria who broke the deadlock - Thomas Raffl broke out of his own zone and kept skating until he was one-on-one with Samuel Ersson. The Philadelphia Flyers goaltender made the save, put the rebound was tucked away by Benjamin Baumgartner.
An interference penalty against Paul Stapelfeld was the Austrians' undoing past the midpoint of the match, as Sweden used the man advantage to full effect.
After some patient play, Mika Zibanejad took aim from just inside the blue line, and his shot was too well placed for David Kickert to keep out.
Hopes the home crowd at the Avicii Arena had of Sweden kicking on failed to materialise, and things got much worse midway through the third period when Roger Bader's side took the lead once more.
Marco Kasper burst into the attacking zone down the left side, played a neat one two with Ramon Schnetzer and guided the one-timer into the net.
The Tre Kronor were forced to push for another equaliser, and with 02:19 left in the match, they found it when Lucas Raymond played the puck across to Jonas Brodin, who wound up a powerful strike which flew into the goal.
With the scores tied, Sweden had no thoughts of taking the match to an extra period - just 12 seconds of play later, a faceoff was worked back to Rasmus Andersson, who found Zibanejad and he rifled in his second of the game and third of the World Championship.
Austria went from a winning position to pulling the goaltender in a matter of seconds, and that backfired on them soon after.
Sam Hallam's men won the puck back in the attacking zone and after an initial effort was missed, Mikael Backlund picked out Alexander Wennburg, whose shot evaded the desperate Austrian defence to wrap up the 4-2 victory.
Austria's third attempt to get points on the board comes on Monday against neighbours Slovakia, then later that night Sweden also have a local derby, against Finland, where they will aim to retain first place in Group A.
