Kovalchuk saga coming to a close soon

3:15 pm: EJ Hradek via twitter: “As of 3:02 pm ET, NHL Deputy Commish Bill Daly says the league has not yet signed off on concepts for new Kovy-Devils deal.”

2:33 pm: Tom Gulitti is tweeting that there might not be an announcement from the Devils until Saturday.

Will DePaoli is reporting that the deal could be in the $84-$91 million, 12-13 year range.

Gulitti gets another confirmation on the deal being approved. Dmitry Chesnokov is confirming as well.

2:11 pm: According to Dmitry Chesnokov via twitter, the latest and possibly the last Ilya Kovalchuk proposal was sent to the league several hours ago. Tom Gulitti says it’s looking like the Devils-Kovalchuk got the thumbs up from the league. Greg Wyshynski, a source told Dmitry that the NHL will approved the proposal.

It was reported earlier through Chesnokov by Pavel Lysenkov who spoke with Kovalchuk’s Russian agent, that if he were to sign a KHL contract, he would spend the entire season there. There were reports earlier that Kovalchuk could start the season in the KHL, and return to the NHL once a contract was finalized.