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Not sure how we missed this, but Joe Sacco ripped the refereeing last night

Joe Sacco

Joe Sacco should’ve been a happy man after his Colorado Avlanche beat Calgary 2-1 (OT) on Tuesday. The win pushed the Avs to 7-2-1 in their last 10 and gave them sole possession of seventh in the West.

Yet when speaking to Adrian Dater of the Denver Post postgame, Sacco was not a happy man. See, Colorado went the entire game without a single power play -- for the sixth time this year.

No other team has more than three.

“I hate to sound like I’m complaining, because that’s not what we’re about, but at the end of the day, enough is enough,” Sacco said. “It’s baffling to me right now.”

The zebras in question last night were Greg Kimmerly and Wes McCauley (Kimmerly was the guy that high-fived Montreal’s Erik Cole, by the way) -- and to be fair, they put their whistles away for the majority of the evening. Calgary received just three power-play opportunities, one of which came on a too-many-men call against the Avs.

That was of little consolation to Sacco, though. He was livid over a non-call late in the contest when Mark Giordano opened up Ryan O’Reilly with the butt-end of his stick, drawing blood.

"[It was] a blatant high-stick on Ryan O’Reilly,” Sacco said. “It’s a scoring opportunity, and four guys on the ice miss it. I don’t know how you miss that call. That could have been a four-minute power play right there, and maybe we could have ended it in regulation. It’s baffling.”

Sacco’s frustration clearly wasn’t just about last night -- Colorado came into the contest with the fewest power-play chances in the NHL (204). No word yet if the Avs coach will be subjected to a fine or discipline from the league but, as Dater pointed out, Sacco was angry to the point where he didn’t care.