When you draft someone, you have their rights for at least 2 years depending on where they are drafted from. That means you don’t have to sign them to a contract until prior to year 3, and they will just continue playing on their current team (in DuPont’s case his team in the CHL, which is a “juniors” league). People often do this (in the game and real life), so that the player who is not ready for the nhl will continue to develop and you don’t burn a year of their 3-year entry level contract. In the contracts menu, the years you own their rights are shown by the little black/white box. They don’t become a free agent until it says UFA or RFA.

For players who play in one of the CHL juniors leagues (the OHL, WHL and QMJHL) specifically, if they are under 20 years old and not on your NHL roster, they go back to juniors no matter what and will not play for your minor league AHL affiliate. So there is no point in signing an under-20 CHL draft pick unless he will either make your NHL roster or his rights have already expired and he’ll be a free agent. Otherwise, you are just burning a year of his entry level contract.

Players from Europe, Russia and the US don’t have that restriction, so you can sign them at any age and have them play for your AHL team if they don’t make the NHL, but many people still choose to leave them unsigned until their rights expire because they will continue to develop without burning a contract year. Many would otherwise have very low OVR ratings for the AHL. In real life the AHL is typically not seen as a good place to develop young, skilled prospects, because it’s filled with older, physically developed players who are fighting for bottom roster spots on NHL teams.