He is on a rehab plan, stood over the training yesterday and will not play tonight. We'll see from there, but hopefully he's ready for the weekend, says Tre Kronor's national team captain Sam Hallam.
The Calgary star missed training along with Vancouver's back Pettersson on Tuesday, the day after the 2-1 win over Finland.
At Wednesday's match warm-up, Pettersson was back, but not Backlund.
It was a precautionary measure with Marcus, so the plan with him was always to play today, says Hallam.
Tre Kronor will not replace Backlund in tonight's match and will play with eleven.
Lindholm will go in on a center position and then we have more players who can play center, says Hallam.
The national ice hockey team still has four open spots in the World Championship squad and three players are on site who have not yet been announced to the squad.
It is back Gabriel Carlsson, and the forward duo Max Friberg, Frölunda, and Christoffer Ehn, Linköping.
The alternative would have been to announce one of the forward players to tonight's match to replace Backlund. But the team management wants to keep the door open for players who may become available from the Stanley Cup playoffs.
We choose to do so and then we'll see where we stand before Friday's match, says Hallam.
After tonight's match against Latvia, which starts at 20.20, Sweden plays its next match on Friday evening against Slovenia.
