After a few stumbles in April and a disappointing loss in the Svenska Cupen final in midweek, Hammarby are hitting top form in May, registering a third consecutive league win by a combined score of 8-1, with five of those total goals coming at 3Arena in Round 8.
Three of them belonged to Nahir Besara, whose afternoon was kick-started by Paulos Abraham being fouled in the area by Andrej Djuric, giving the Hammarby man the chance to power a 13th-minute penalty down the middle to put the hosts in front.
Besara's afternoon got better just before the half-hour mark, as Abraham's through ball found him in space just inside the box that allowed him to turn and strike the ball into the bottom corner.
Malmo looked to be back in it eight minutes before the break when goalkeeper Warner Hahn failed to gather a loose ball at a corner, and Kenan Busuladzic bundled it into the unguarded net. However, MFF hopes lasted just six minutes, as Hampus Skoglund got to the byline and crossed for Besara to complete his hat-trick with the simplest of headers.
With 18 minutes to play, Hammarby wrapped up the win in style, as Besara notched a fourth goal involvement of the game, finding Victor Lind on the left side of the area and he curled a fantastic fourth into the top corner.
The Stockholm side are now two points off leaders Sirius, albeit having played a game more, while Malmo have now lost four of their last five, slipping down to eighth in the standings and nine points off the leaders.
A point behind Hammarby are third-placed Hacken, who remained one of two sides still unbeaten in the Swedish top flight thanks to a win over Mjallby, whose five-match unbeaten run in Allsvenskan came to an end.
It was a six-match unbeaten in all competitions for the champions, who added the Svenska Cupen title to their quickly-growing trophy cabinet, but they failed to reproduce that form this afternoon after a costly decision at the end of the first half.
Gustav Lindgren attemped to run onto a through ball and go through on goal, but he was pulled back by Axel Noren, who was shown a straight red card. MAIF's resistance lasted for 30 minutes in the second half, but was finally ended by Julius Lindberg, who had a simple tap-in after Jeremy Agbonifo got to the byline and put it on a plate.
That goal was enough for Hacken to register a second win in a row and help shake the tag of draw specialists, as Mjallby drop to sixth.
AIK's struggles this season are continuing after a stalemate away at promoted Vasteras means their winless run has stretched to five matches, while their hosts snapped a two-game losing run.
The Solna side went behind in fairly comical fashion in the 45th minute, as Ibrahim Cisse's mis-hit clearance kept the ball alive inside the AIK box, and it was worked to Marcus Baggesen, whose shot then took a big deflection off Cisse to take it past Kristoffer Nordfeldt.
Not only could Vasteras not see out the win, they couldn't see out the lead until half-time - four minutes into added time, Aron Csongvai's beautiful free-kick flew into the net from 25 yards and secured a share of the spoils. AIK are 10th and Vasteras 12th, with both on nine points.
The last six Brommapojkarna matches have seen a defeat followed by a victory, and that pattern continuing against Kalmar was enough to take them to seventh, while the visitors remain 13th after some similarly inconsistent form.
The only goal of the game came 25 minutes in and was created by some excellent build-up play down the BP left, as a one-two with Oliver Berg gave Sion Oppong the chance to shoot, and his effort took a big deflection to take it past the goalkeeper.
Kalmar had chances to equalise in the second half, but failure to capitalise means they fall to a fifth loss since returning to the top division.