The National Hockey League on Friday announced plans to sell the Phoenix Coyotes to an investor group that says it will keep the franchise in Glendale.

The league signed a letter of intent to sell the team to Ice Edge Holdings, a group that previously sought to buy the team in bankruptcy. The group has said it plans to remain in Glendale but wants to be able to play five home games annually in Canada.

"While much remains to be done, the NHL looks forward to working closely with Ice Edge to bring the sale to a conclusion as expeditiously as possible," Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement.

The sale would cap a seven-month saga in which the previous owner threw the Coyotes into bankruptcy, leaving Glendale fearing the loss of its main tenant at Jobing.com Arena and Valley hockey fans worrying that the Coyotes could be taken to Canada.

Former owner Jerry Moyes backed a sale to a Canadian businessman who wanted to move the Coyotes to Hamilton, Ontario. Jim Balsillie offered the most money to pay off the team's debts, but the league didn't want the team to move. The resulting battle had other major sports owners watching to see whether bankruptcy could end up trumping a professional league's rules.

In the end, the league prevailed and bought the team in Bankruptcy Court in November for about $140 million.

It has spent the past month negotiating with suitors.

Ice Edge, which consists of Canadian and American investors, also bid on the team during bankruptcy but withdrew its bid by September.

Sources close to the new deal told The Republic that Ice Edge is expected to pay the league in the $140 million range, about the amount the NHL spent.

The buyers said they have an agreement in principle with Glendale, which owns the arena. The team has more than two decades remaining on its lease, which Ice Edge has said it does not plan to break. Details of the new agreement have not been announced.

Glendale Mayor Elaine Scruggs said the forthcoming sale was a relief.

"This thing has been in limbo for just too long," she said. "We did believe there would be a buyer for this team to keep it in Glendale even in the darkest days."

Glendale spent $182 million to open Jobing.com Arena in 2003. The city depends on revenue from Coyotes games to help retire the debt.

Scruggs said she anticipates the deal will not include revenue concessions from the city.

Daryl Jones, an investor with Ice Edge, said that his group believes the metro Phoenix market is large enough to support professional hockey with a well-run and winning franchise.

"First and foremost, we are hockey fans," said Jones, a former Yale hockey player. "We think it's a sport that can thrive anywhere."

In the fall, Jones said retaining fan loyalty would be the key to securing the team's future in the Valley.

What Coyotes fans needed most, he said, was to "really believe definitively that the team is not leaving, to be able to open up their hearts again."

From the start, Ice Edge has said it would propose to play five home games in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The games would be non-playoff games and a way to generate more revenue, the group says.

Coyotes season-ticket holder John Glenn of Laveen said Friday that if the arena is not sold out, he is comfortable with that plan.

"But if we prove to be viable, we should be entitled to those games," he added.

Glenn said he has been impressed with Ice Edge's statements that hockey can work anywhere.

Ice Edge would have five majority owners: Jones, Anthony LeBlanc, John Breslow, Keith McCullough and Todd Jordan.

Jones, McCullough and Jordan work together at Research Edge, a Connecticut-based investment-research firm. Like Jones, McCullough was a hockey player at Yale.

LeBlanc grew up with McCullough in Thunder Bay, Canada. Breslow was a minority owner of the Coyotes under the former ownership group headed by Moyes.

Moyes put the team into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. He said he lost about $300 million during his ownership and has said recently that hockey cannot work in the Valley.

The NHL and Glendale fought the move, with Glendale saying it would suffer hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses if the team left.

The NHL Board of Governors, which must approve franchise owners, is scheduled to meet Tuesday in Pebble Beach, Calif. The Coyotes are among the discussion topics.

Jones, of Ice Edge, said he hoped to close the deal within the next few months.