{"id":280938,"date":"2025-11-09T08:43:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T08:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/280938\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T08:43:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T08:43:07","slug":"capitals-draft-pick-antoine-keller-has-ahl-contract-with-hershey-terminated-returns-to-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/280938\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitals draft pick Antoine Keller has AHL contract with Hershey terminated, returns to Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Antoine Keller was set to play his first full professional season in the Washington Capitals organization. Instead, the French goaltender is heading back home.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, the Hershey Bears announced that Keller\u2019s AHL contract for the 2025-26 season has been terminated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGoaltender Antoine Keller has elected to return to Europe to pursue playing opportunities overseas,\u201d the Bears wrote. \u201cWe have mutually agreed to terminate his AHL contract for the 2025-26 season. The Washington Capitals retain Keller\u2019s NHL rights.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Goaltender Antoine Keller has elected to return to Europe to pursue playing opportunities overseas. We have mutually agreed to terminate his AHL contract for the 2025-26 season. The Washington Capitals retain Keller&#8217;s NHL rights.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Hershey Bears (@TheHersheyBears) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheHersheyBears\/status\/1986524097552040359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">November 6, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Keller, a Capitals\u2019 seventh-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, ended up playing in four games for the ECHL South Carolina Stingrays from October 19 through November 1, posting a record of 2-2-0 along with a 3.54 goals-against average and a .881 save percentage.<\/p>\n<p>As part of a three-man goalie rotation with the Stingrays, the 21-year-old Keller was splitting starts primarily with Mitch Gibson, who, in four appearances, was 3-1-0 along with a 1.52 GAA and .950 SV%. Seth Eisele also played in one game.<\/p>\n<p>Keller, however, already has a contract with a new team and is taking his talents back to the Swiss National League. He signed a one-year deal with HC Ajoie, a team based in Porrentruy, Switzerland.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DQv9sGCjUoQ\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Per a French press release<\/a> and a translation from Google Translate:<\/p>\n<p>A great addition to HC Ajoie \u270d\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>HC Ajoie is pleased to announce the addition of young Franco-Swiss goaltender Antoine Keller to its roster. Drafted in 2023 by the Washington Capitals, the highly promising French international has returned to Switzerland to continue his development and gain experience.<\/p>\n<p>Before crossing the Atlantic, where he recently went from Washington\u2019s preseason camp to the South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL, the 21-year-old netminder notably played 13 games for Lausanne HC last season.<\/p>\n<p>The agreement covers the 2025\/26 and 2026\/27 seasons. Antoine Keller will be available to coach Greg Ireland starting Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Last season, Keller suited up for Lausanne HC of the National League, posting a 5-5-0 record along with a 3.16 GAA and .894 SV% in 13 games. He was also loaned for part of the year to La Chaux-de-Fonds of the Sky Swiss League \u2014 the second-tier league in Switzerland (think: the Swiss AHL).<\/p>\n<p>Keller also represented France\u2019s national team, serving as a backup during France\u2019s Olympic Qualifying game and appearing in four games during the 2025 World Championship.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Antoine Keller was set to play his first full professional season in the Washington Capitals organization. Instead, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-280938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}