"I thought he was excellent," Eakins said of Stolarz. "I thought he came in and played a really good game. He was calm in there. He was big. He made some real key saves for us."
Jakob Silfverberg scored the lone goal on the power play for Anaheim. The Ducks are 3-9 (33.3%) with the man advantage through two games.
"If you think back to last year it was, 'Hey, we were close. We played a good game and could have won the game,'" Eakins said. "Now the mindset of the team is in a much different place. The good thing is it does hurt now. Guys aren't accepting it."
After a scoreless opening frame, Silfverberg and Kevin Shattenkirk connected to put Anaheim on the board first, just as they did on opening night. With just over a minute remaining on a Ducks power play to start the second period, Shattenkirk found a speeding Silfverberg attacking the Minnesota blueline. Silfverberg faked a shot to freeze the Cam Talbot before hurrying behind the net to the far post, beating the Wild netminder with a wraparound to give Anaheim a 1-0 advantage.
After posting two helpers in the season opener, Silfverberg leads Anaheim with three points (1-2=3). Fowler and Shattenkirk each collected their second point of the season with assists on the power-play goal.
Minnesota evened the score late in the second period with a power-play goal of its own as Kevin Fiala capitalized on a cross-ice feed from Mats Zuccarello.
The Ducks attacked offensively in the final period, creating multiple scoring chances on another power play, but could not beat Talbot again to take a late lead.
With the game seemingly heading for overtime, Anaheim could not clear the defensive zone and Marcus Foligno got to the rebound first, spinning a shot past an outstretched Stolarz to all but finalize a 2-1 Minnesota win.
"They were firing everything at the net and it was up to me to control the rebounds," Stolarz said. "Tonight I wish I had that second one back. It's going to burn tonight, but we'll park it in the rear view mirror and move on."
"It's not like it was a missed assignment, we just got outmuscled," Eakins added. "It was loose puck, a 50-50 puck, and we couldn't find it."
Anaheim begins a four-game roadtrip Monday against the Calgary Flames (6:30 p.m.)
