"With $6 million to $7 million of space below the NHL's salary cap, general manager Stan Bowman has plenty of money to spend when the time comes to improve the Blackhawks.

With the best record in the league, that time isn't now.

"We're not in a rush to spend money," Bowman said before the Hawks' game against the Flames on Friday night at Scotiabank Saddledome. "It's really a bit of an oddity for us. In the last couple of years … we've been playing things day-by-day — literally — in terms of sending guys down and shuttling them back and forth. In an ideal world you would like to try to keep your guys here and have room if you do have injuries or if you have an opportunity to improve your team. That's how we're going to approach it.

"We do have a lot more cap space than we've ever had," Bowman added. "When the time is right, if that opportunity comes, we won't be hesitant to move on it. Right now, we don't have any things that we're close to doing or looking at, but we're always looking ahead about what might be there.""