Auston Matthews’ Swiss hockey season is over. His ZSC Lions, the top seed in the playoffs, have been swept in four games by SC Bern in the first round.
Matthews finished with three assists in the postseason. He had 24 goals and 22 assists in 36 regular-season games for the Zurich club. The 18-year-old from Scottsdale is expected to be the first overall pick in this summer’s NHL draft.
Matthews’ head coach this season, Marc Crawford, won’t be back with the club either. He spent four seasons in charge of ZSC, winning a championship in 2013-14 and losing in the finals last year.
Crawford, who coached the 1995-96 Colorado Avalanche to the Stanley Cup, wants to return to the NHL -- preferably as a head coach, though he hasn’t ruled out accepting an assistant position, or even a job in “one of the other leagues.”
Related: Guy Boucher fired by SC Bern