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It’s smooth sailing for Canada’s Brad Gushue entering the playoffs at the world men’s curling championship.

Gushue picked up another pair of wins Thursday to complete a jaw-dropping 11-0 round-robin record by running the table at Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

Gushue entered the day already guaranteed a spot in the Page 1-2 playoff game and locked up the No. 1 seed with another blowout thumping Italy’s Joel Retornaz 9-2 in just six ends during the morning draw. A King Kong Bundy-sized five-count in the fourth end put the game away early and the Italian team was already unstrapping the gloves before Gushue delivered the final blow scoring a deuce in the sixth.

Gushue still showed no mercy in the evening match against Norway’s Steffen Walstad doubling up 8-4 in eight ends. After a tight start, it was just a matter of when the big end would come for Gushue and he put the hurt on with a four-score in the third to lead 5-1. Walstad couldn’t capitalize on a couple rare Gushue miscues and only managed to put singles on the board.

The St. John’s, N.L., squad can make history as the first 13-0 winner in the event’s history and match compatriot Rachel Homan, who was the first to pull off the feat on the women’s side last month in Beijing.

Gushue wouldn’t be the first to capture the world title undefeated, but he would be the first under the current 12-team format. Rick Folk posted a perfect 10-0 record in 1980 and Kerry Burtnyk went 11-0 en route to the championship in 1995.

Nothing is guaranteed, of course. Mark Dacey of Halifax went 9-0 through round-robin play at the world men’s championship in 2004, but he lost the semifinal to Germany and beat Norway to settle for bronze.

Gushue will open Friday night’s Page 1-2 playoff game against Sweden’s Niklas Edin (9-2) with the hammer advantage. That’ll give Gushue a greater deal of control to start as it was something he didn’t have during their round-robin encounter. Edin opened with hammer and Gushue had to play catch up for most of the match, pulling ahead late in the eighth and stealing in nine to add a cushion of support during the 8-6 victory.

The winner of that game advances directly to Sunday’s gold-medal match.

A loss in the 1-2 game isn’t the end of the world (championship). The loser will have with another shot to slide into the gold-medal game via Saturday’s semifinal against the winner of the Page 3 vs. 4 playoff game between Peter de Cruz of Switzerland and American John Shuster. The straight shot is obviously the preferred path though as it gives you Saturday off plus hammer advantage to start the final.

Gushue enters the playoffs with confidence too knowing no matter who he faces along the way he’s beaten them once already this week. He can’t expect any more lopsided wins though. Sweden and Switzerland bounced back from their early losses to Canada to stay high in the playoff picture and both were the only ones to take Gushue to the distance playing into the 10th end whereas everyone else shook hands early.

Edin is a two-time world champion winning both titles on Canadian ice, so he’s used to crushing the dreams of Canucks before. De Cruz has a bronze from his previous appearance at the worlds in 2014 and Shuster earned that medal last year. While all three have appeared on the podium before, Gushue is playing in his first world championship. The 2006 Olympic gold medallist is hardly a rookie and clearly showed it during his dominant run through the round robin.

De Cruz, Shuster meet in 3-4 game

Entering the final day of round-robin play, five-loss teams — China, Japan, Norway and Scotland — were still in it although they needed to win out and hope the U.S. (entering at 6-3) lost both of their games to bring in tiebreakers.

Shuster hung on for a 6-5 win over Jaap van Dorp of the Netherlands in the morning draw to wipe out that scenario and end the playoff dreams of several teams in the process.

De Cruz (8-3) lost two of his last three, but kick-started a seven-game win streak Saturday with a 7-4 victory over Shuster. The Swiss side will begin the 3-4 game with hammer, which was something they didn’t have in that round-robin match against the U.S.

Shuster (8-3) picked up steam following a disappointing 2-3 start to win six consecutive games heading into the playoffs.

Olympic qualification at stake

With the playoffs set and two round-robin draws remaining, that shifted the focus to qualifying for the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

To recap, countries receive points based on last year’s world championship result and this year’s finish. The top seven receive guaranteed berths to the Games. The host nation also holds a spot while two other countries will come from an additional qualification event taking place in December in Czech Republic.

Here are the eight teams locked in for the 2018 Winter Olympics in men’s curling: Canada, U.S., Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, Great Britain (Scotland) and host South Korea.

Denmark, Finland, Russia, Germany, China, Czech Republic, Italy and Netherlands will have to play in the pre-qualification tournament to keep their Olympic dreams alive.