Yeah signing directly with an AHL team is pretty common, I'd guess probably about half of the league's players are contracted directly to their team and aren't property of an NHL team. Bourque's situation was a little unusual though. He was on a two-way contract with the Capitals in which he made something like $350k while playing in the AHL, which is pretty standard. However, when that contract expired the Capitals didn't want to re-sign him, but the Bears wanted to keep him and he agreed to a deal with them directly. I'm not sure how much he was making on that AHL contract, but I'd be surprised to find out if it was still over $300k. I think the average AHL salary is something like $50k. I'm sure he made more than that, but $300k is a massive salary for an AHL team to pay out.