On the scoreboard, there is nothing good about a loss. On the ice, however, it could prove to be a valuable lesson.

Following his team's 6-0 defeat against Robert Morris -- a NCAA Division I team -- on Sunday, Penn State ACHA Division I Icers' head coach Scott Balboni spent more time focusing on the positive aspects of his team's performance and labeling the game as a learning experience.

"Every time we made a small mistake, they stuck it in the back of the net. And when they made a mistake, we just couldn't capitalize," Balboni said. "From that standpoint, the game wasn't really reflective of the score. They had a really, really good team. I don't think we did many things poorly, we just got beat by a better team."

Despite the lopsided score, the No. 2 Icers appeared to be evenly matched with the Colonials.

Robert Morris held a slim 29-22 advantage in shots and was only able to convert one of its four power play opportunities. Penn State might have been able to change the outcome had it taken advantage of any one of its 10 power play chances, but Colonials senior goaltender Joe Tuset turned away every shot to secure the shutout.

No blame, however, was placed on Tuset's counterpart, Icers sophomore goaltender Nick Signet.

"I thought Nick played a good game," Balboni said. "There was only one goal that he might have been able to have back and the rest were the result of breakdowns by other players."

Signet -- filling in for senior Chris Matteo, who is rehabbing a sports hernia injury that he suffered last season -- was also pleased with his performance. The Sewickley native has already started the same amount of games (2) this season than he had all of his freshman year.

"Every goalie is critical of himself and definitely wants to stop every shot, but I thought I had a solid weekend," he said.

Sunday's loss didn't cloud the players' perspective of their accomplishments in the opening weekend, which also saw a 4-3 road victory over Washington and Jefferson.

With only two seniors and 16 of their 28 roster spots occupied by sophomores, the Icers learned a lot about themselves and what they need to work on.

"We expected not to be quite up to our potential just yet. We've only had a couple weeks worth of practices and I think we are just trying to find ourselves right now," sophomore forward Luke DeLorenzo said.

"The most positive thing is that we know what we have to do to get the level where we want to be. And any time you can understand what mistakes you made, hopefully you can learn from them and be better off."