The Flyers’ home opener started with hope and excitement. It ended with a reality check and a cacophony of boos.

With the Flyers’ New Era of Orange slogan now a year old and heralded rookie Matvei Michkov at last in Philadelphia, it felt like a permanent change in their on-ice product was finally about to follow their change in branding.

The Wells Fargo Center concourse was bustling with excitement Saturday an hour before the puck dropped in the home opener against Vancouver. And by the time Michkov emerged from the tunnel for the first time, beneath plumes of fire, the seats were nearly full all the way up to the nosebleeds.

But many of those seats had emptied again before the final buzzer sounded on the Flyers’ 3-0 loss. Those who remained loudly voiced their disapproval of the stagnant offensive performance.

» READ MORE: Sluggish Flyers shut out, 3-0, by Canucks in disappointing home opener

“Frankly, it was probably deserved,” defenseman Erik Johnson said of the boos that serenaded the Flyers for much of the night. “You know, they’re excited for a new season and lots of good, young, new players. And you know, if the players aren’t delivering, we deserve to hear it.”

The Flyers had pulled out all the stops to capitalize on the buzz around Michkov’s home debut — they even played an elaborate Rocky-inspired montage starring Gritty before the lineup announcements. Famed ring announcer and Philadelphia native Michael Buffer had announced the Flyers’ first-round selection of Jett Luchanko in Las Vegas in June, and he got things started on Saturday with his trademark “Let’s get ready to rumble!”

But it turns out that one player — even a 19-year-old Russian phenom — isn’t the magical solution to every problem that has plagued the Flyers for the last four seasons. It took just under fifteen minutes into the first period for the same old cracks to show.

Michkov’s pair of power-play goals on Tuesday in Edmonton had provided a glimmer of hope that the Flyers might have the key to solving their biggest weakness. But when Elias Pettersson was sent off for tripping in the first period, the listless power play of the last few seasons was back in full force. As the Flyers struggled to sustain offensive zone possession with the extra man, the first boos of the season rang out.

Across three opportunities with the extra man, the Flyers mustered only three shots on goal.

“We need to simplify ourselves a little bit that way,” coach John Tortorella said. “That’s what bothered me the most in the first half of the game was just opportunities to shoot the puck, and we didn’t.”

The team didn’t want to use the weeklong Western road trip it had returned from on Friday as an excuse for its performance. Judging from the boos at the end of the first period and continued groans throughout the third, the fans didn’t want to hear any excuses either.

“It’s the NHL, you come ready every day, and everyone goes through the West, goes through it all the time,” forward Scott Laughton said. “We got enough time to prepare and get ready for this one. Especially home opener, you’ve got a lot of juice, but it didn’t translate. It [stinks] right now, but we’re still early in the year. We still need to work on a ton of things and get better, and we will.”

Michkov did show flashes of the playmaking ability that is expected to be a difference-maker for the Flyers. He sent a setup pass to Johnson in the second period that the defenseman just couldn’t tap into the empty net.

“Absolutely perfect pass,” Johnson said. “ … I don’t know if it clips the goalie’s pad or not, but right before it’s going to hit my blade it hops, and [s—] luck.”

But the fact is there are issues that the addition of Michkov to the lineup won’t solve alone. The Flyers don’t have a clear plan at center: Sean Couturier was shifted to the wing and demoted to the fourth line to start the game, lining up alongside energy guys Ryan Poehling and Garnet Hathaway. Tortorella shifted the lines as the game went on, and Couturier ended up back in the middle. But the initial move signals that the Flyers are still searching for answers at that position.

» READ MORE: Matvei Michkov’s brilliance, a lack of five-on-five goals headline a disjointed opening road trip for the Flyers

One of their other center options is 18-year-old Luchanko, whose 12 minutes, 23 seconds of ice time was the second-lowest on the team behind Bobby Brink.

Defensively, the Flyers also missed the presence of Nick Seeler, who has been injured since the preseason.

Saturday marked the first time the Flyers were shut out in a home opener since 1999. It was certainly a missed opportunity to start the Michkov Era on a high note and generate some excitement within a frustrated fan base. But more than anything, it highlighted the amount of work that still needs to be done.

“We’ve got another back-to-back coming. It’s not getting any easier,” Laughton said. “So we’ve got to come prepared. And every single guy’s got to come to work and be ready to go.”