Bryan Rust's lower-body injury that kept him out of this game isn't seen as being as serious, given that Mike Sullivan suggested he was placed on IR early today only because of the two-week break that begins tomorrow for the league's 4 Nations Face-Off tournament.

"We would anticipate him being available," Sullivan would say of Rust's status when the season resumes. "It was more about having roster flexibility so we could call somebody up and have 12 healthy forwards in the lineup."

There was no word on how/when Rust was hurt. He was on the ice for the final shift last night in New York, and nothing obvious happened to him.

• Sidney Crosby skated here in the morning but was held out for a second game because of his upper-body injury, although Sullivan described progress compared to his work in a skate yesterday in New York.

There was no word on his availability for Canada’s entry in the 4 Nations tournament.

"We're going to take each day as it comes," Sullivan would say when asked about that. "He skated for a long time this morning. He felt significantly better today than he did yesterday, and that's really encouraging."

• Man, Kevin Hayes was terrific yet again as Sid's replacement centering the first line, with an assist, a plus-2 rating, four shots, nine shot attempts, two hits and -- get this -- when he was on the ice, the Penguins had 44 shot attempts to the Flyers' 16. Dude can still play.

• Anthony Beauvillier had a night, as well, scoring the goal above that'd initially been credited to Hayes, plus a game-high nine shots, 13 attempts and four hits. "All those chances," was what he'd tell me of that. "I had so many chances. So many."

More from our talk:

• No, that initial no-goal call on that goal had nothing to do with whether or not rookie referee Morgan MacPhee blew the whistle first. It was because he'd ruled goaltender interference on Hayes, which is the only reason it was reviewable.

• MacPhee was embarrassingly bad. Same ref who looked right at Danton Heinen being held from behind by a stickless Jamie Drysdale on a clean breakaway ... and called it a minor.

• Erik Karlsson's got a five game points streak of two goals and four assists, including this precision picking of a little room over Sam Ersson's left shoulder:

He had one like that against Marc-Andre Fleury earlier this season, too. When I reminded him of that, he quipped, "They should play me that low all the time."

• Boko Imama, who exited early from the game in New York because of an upper-body injury, was held out of this one, too.

• Vasily Ponomarev, promoted from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL earlier in the day, was his team's fourth-leading scorer with 11 goals and 16 assists in 31 games. Three of his goals came on the power play, two short-handed. "He's played very well for Wilkes-Barre," Sullivan would say. "He brings a lot of energy, he can skate, he's tenacious on the puck, and he's scored some goals down there. He can play center, he can play the wing, so I think there's some flexibility to his game. I think, in all those ways, he can help us." That might be true over time, but it wasn't in this one. He had the Penguins' worst possession metrics, he was egregiously beaten in a footrace for the Flyers' second goal, and he made some very minor-league mistakes in other aspects, as well.

• In the absence of so many letter-wearers, Rickard Rakell was awarded an alternate captain's 'A,' a first for his tenure in Pittsburgh. The others: Kris Letang and Karlsson.

• That's it for a while: Next practice is Feb. 18 in Cranberry, Pa., and next game is Feb. 22 at PPG Paints Arena, a Saturday matinee against the first-place Capitals.