The Colorado Eagles soared, and the Rapid City Rush stumbled on special teams play Friday night.

The Eagles decimated the Central Hockey League’s top-ranked penalty-kill unit with three power-play goals, while blanking Rapid City on 10 man-advantage opportunities for a 4-1 win at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center Ice Arena.

The staunch Northern Conference rivals combined for a 130 penalty minutes on 34 offenses, including six fights, but four unanswered Colorado goals had many in the season’s first sell-out crowd of 5,119 heading for the exits early.

“We took some bad calls, but we’ve got the players in that locker room that can score goals and when you’ve got 10 power plays you’ve got to score,” Rush head coach Joe Ferras said. “The work ethic was there, we played hard, but if you’re 0-for-15 on power plays in your own rink in two games, then maybe we need to put different guys on power plays.” 

The Rush lit the lamp first on Brendan Cook’s sixth goal of the year with 7:03 gone in the first period. Scott Wray added his seventh assist off the feed from Gio Flamminio, who tallied his first point after coming off injured reserve earlier this week.

But from there the Eagles took over.

Ryan McLeod answered with the equalizer for Colorado on a power play eight minutes later, and with Rapid City’s Blaine Jarvis still in the box for an unsportsmanlike infraction called late in the second period, Kevin Ulanski gave the Eagles the lead for good on another man-advantage goal less than a minute into the third frame.

McLeod padded the lead with the Eagles’ lone even-strength tally of the night, and Ryan Tobler sealed it with a tap-in past Rush goalie Danny Battochio on a 5-on-3 power-play five minutes later.   

Rapid City couldn’t take advantage of a penalty shot called 35 seconds into the contest. Rich Hansen skated in for an unassisted shot but was grabbed by Brett Lutes for the interference call.

Colorado goalie Andrew Penner made 36 saves for the win. Battochio stopped 32-of-36 shots in the loss.

“They had some opportunities too, but Penner came up big in the net, “ said Colorado coach Kevin McClelland.  “Our guys found a way to get it done, that third goal was a big one for us.”

Rapid City had handed Colorado its second straight loss, 3-2, on Tuesday night at the Ice Arena.

“We wanted to make sure we rebounded. That’s what it’s all about. We came out with a very solid effort, physically showed up and didn’t take a back seat,” McClelland said.

Both Rapid City (6-6-1 overall) and Colorado (8-2-1) head for the Eagles’ home ice at the Budweiser Event Center in Windsor, Colo., to complete the home-and-home series tonight at 7:05 p.m.