Despite admitting last summer that it is “unlikely” NHL hockey would return to his state, Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy is not giving up on the slapshot dream, sources said.

The Democrat has formed a group to look into the possibility of bringing a team back to the Constitution State and has approached at least one deep-pocketed potential buyer of a team, sources tell The Post.

The Hartford-New Haven TV market, the 30th-largest in the US and the biggest without a major-league sports team, saw its NHL Hartford Whalers leave for North Carolina after the 1996-97 season.

Hartford and other large urban centers in Connecticut are still suffering the effects of the recession and Malloy, like other governors around the country, is casting a wide net looking for economic solutions.

One solution Malloy has not ruled out is the NHL.

“Governor Malloy has formed a group to bring an NHL team to Hartford,” a source with direct knowledge of the situation said. Recently, Malloy approached at least one potential buyer, a second source said, and told the suitor the plan is to build a new arena as part of a bigger development that would be in the state, but not necessarily Hartford.

Malloy, in telling local TV last summer that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman had told him it was “unlikely” a team would be relocated to his state, said it would take an investment of roughly $450 million to bring a new arena to life.

A Malloy spokesman told The Post “persons have reached out to him with non-specific proposals” but that was it.

The NHL and its players announced yesterday they had reached a tentative deal to end a 113-day lockout. Games could start as early as the middle of this month .

jkosman@nypost.com