Jakub Zboril still hangs over Boston, and Marco Sturm now coaches a Bruins team living with years of draft misses.

This is the real angle with Boston. It's not just that some first-round picks stalled out. It's that the Bruins made those bets with better players still sitting on the board.

Start with John Beecher. Boston took him 30th overall in 2019, then watched Shane Pinto go 32nd and Jackson LaCombe go 39th.

That's what makes the pick sting. Beecher became a depth piece, while the names after him gave their teams more upside and more value for that draft slot.

The same logic hits Trent Frederic. Boston grabbed him 29th overall in 2016, right before Jordan Kyrou at 35 and Alex DeBrincat at 39.

Frederic brought edge, forechecking, and some bite. But when a late first-round pick comes before two legit scoring threats, the debate never goes away.

Boston kept missing while better names stayed on the board

Urho Vaakanainen is another clean example. The Bruins took him 18th overall in 2017, ahead of Robert Thomas at 20 and Jake Oettinger at 26.

That's not a small miss. Thomas turned into a difference-making center, and Oettinger became the kind of goalie every front office spends years trying to find.

Fabian Lysell still has time to shift the conversation, but the pressure is already there. Boston picked him 21st overall in 2021.

After that came Wyatt Johnston at 23rd, Logan Stankoven at 47th, and Matthew Knies at 57th. When three later picks push into bigger NHL roles faster, the Bruins take the hit.

Then there's the one that always comes back: Zboril at 13th overall in 2015. Right behind him were Mathew Barzal at 16, Kyle Connor at 17, and Thomas Chabot at 18.

That's the kind of sequence that can shape a contender for years. Barzal brought top-end skill, Connor became a major scorer, and Chabot gave a team a blue-line pillar.

So this story is bigger than one prospect who didn't pan out. It's five Bruins swings where the names right behind them make the regret impossible to dodge.

For Boston, that's the wound. Not just the misses themselves, but how close the better answers were when the card went to the podium.