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GENEVA, N.Y. -- Scoring goals has suddenly become difficult for the Nazareth men's hockey team, who resumed their ECAC West Conference schedule at Hobart Friday with a 3-0 defeat to the third-ranked Statesmen.

Nazareth dropped to 5-8-4 overall and 2-4-1 in conference games after suffering its second straight shutout loss.The Golden Flyers also were blanked at Brockport, 7-0, last Saturday. Hobart, ranked third by d3hockey.com and fifth by uscho.com, improved to 13-2-2 and 6-1 in the ECAC West. The Statesmen are unbeaten (8-0-1) in their last nine games and are first in the conference standings.

Hobart's Brad Robbins scored all three goals for the Statesmen, who host the Golden Flyers again Saturday at 4 p.m. Friday's win was Hobart's second over the Golden Flyers this season. Hobart also won 5-3 at the Bill Gray's Regional Iceplex on Nov. 13.

Robbins leads the Statesmen with 12 goals after scoring once in each period. Ben Gamache assisted on the first two goals. Robbins scored just over four minutes into the opening period to give Hobart an early lead. He scored again early in the second period and then scored an empty-net goal with just :46 left in the game on a Hobart power play.

Frank Oplinger played all 60 minutes in goal and made 27 saves to gain credit for his first shutout of the season and third of his career.

Hobart outshot Nazareth 38-27 and the Golden Flyers were 0-for-4 on the power play, including 0-for-3 in the third period. Ed Zdolshek was in goal for Nazareth and made 35 saves. Scott Dawson had five of Nazareth's shots on goal and John Power contributed four.