“I’m proud and honored to announce my commitment to play Division I college hockey and further my education at Miami University. I am extremely grateful for God, family, friends, coaches, and teammates who have supported me along the way,” Pederson posted to his social media pages on August 6, 2024, which was just a few days after he was allowed to start receiving verbal offers from college hockey programs. He took an official visit to the campus in Oxford, Ohio, around August 2, and got to see the university for himself before officially committing on the RedHawks.

“Obviously, the goal is to not have my career end in college and to hopefully make it pro. I wanted to pick the college that would help lead me to that path and would help me play and give me the opportunities that I need to take those steps, so I felt really comfortable with Miami and the coaching staff there and I feel like I can trust them with my development,” he said about choosing the RedHawks, who are now under Head Coach Anthony Noreen who is in Year 2 with the program after the school fired previous bench boss Chris Bergeron in the spring of 2024. Miami has been at the bottom of the NCHC standings for a handful of seasons now but the new coaching staff is looking to change that in the years to come with a promising pool of new prospects, including Pederson.

“I think that’s something that Noreen sold me on pretty good was just building this organization brick by brick back up, putting all the pieces together and getting the right guys,” he said about joining a program that is in the midst of a rebuild at the moment. “I think that just starting with good guys off-ice and then building that culture with even better players on-ice, I think we’re getting the right guys (to go to Miami) and I think we’re gonna make a big impact in the NCHC in the future.”

Shortly after making his commitment in the summer of 2024, Pederson went off to Europe to compete for Team USA in the Under-17 Five Nations Tournament, so it was a very busy month of August for the 5-foot-9 forward. Just a few days after committing to Miami, the Shakopee native was in Hungary playing in an exhibition game against the Hungarian U18 National Team before spending the next week in Piestany, Slovakia, and earning a first-place finish at the U17 Tournament with Team USA by posting a 3-1 overall record with the squad (with wins against Germany, Switzerland and Slovakia, and a loss to Czechia).

“The experience at natty camp (USA National Camp) and being able to make the team and hear my name called, there’s never been anything like that, and wearing the USA logo is the best feeling you can have - it was definitely an adrenaline rush,” he said about the experience of making the team and getting to wear the red, white and blue. “The games themselves (at the Five Nations Tournament) against all those other good countries, it was competitive and some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing hockey.”

It wasn’t surprising to see Pederson committing to a Division I school early on in the recruiting period that summer considering the past few years of success that he has had on the ice. The 5-foot-9 center was coming off a nearly a point-per game freshman season which was then followed by a highly successful sophomore campaign which saw him rack up 20 goals and 32 assists for the Shakopee Sabers through just 27 games. Those 52 points were over double his offensive output from his freshman season.

Making the move up from bantams to high school was definitely tricky at first for Pederson in regards to size since he was still a bit smaller than some of the other bigger, older and stronger guys out on the ice. It wasn’t too bad of an adjustment though and he says that getting to participate in some of the summer scrimmages that offseason helped prepare him for what he was going to experience on varsity that year as a freshman. He also said that some of his linemates and teammates really helped him make a pretty seamless adjustment up to the Shakopee High School squad.

From Year 1 to Year 2 at Shakopee, Pederson improved on many aspects of his game and he really started to show his promise as a Division I prospect since he went from a 22-point freshman season to a 52-point sophomore campaign.

“There was a lot of stuff that I was doing off the ice, like waking up early, doing lifts or going rollerblading or just putting in that extra work away from the rink - I think that helped my game a lot,” he said about his rise through the ranks of high school. “Coming back as a sophomore, I think I felt a lot more comfortable. Everything that I had done off the ice then translated to on the ice and I feel like when I got into a scoring situation or was setting up a play for my teammate, I had been there before and practiced enough to where I could make that play happen a lot easier.”

The offseason between sophomore and junior year then was an extremely busy one for Pederson with the whole recruiting process and the Five Nations Tournament. Eventually he came back home to Shakopee though and competed in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League before officially starting his junior season with the Sabers.

“Going into the season (in 2024-25), I think we all thought that we had a really good team, like we had all the right pieces (at Shakopee). We had a good goalie that could help us win games if we weren’t on our ‘A’-game, we had a defense to shut other teams down and I thought our offense was also really good and we had good depth throughout all three or four lines that we had,” he said. “Early on, we lost a couple of games that we think we should have won but I think all the ups and downs we went through built us up perfectly for the end of the season to make it to the ‘X’ (the Xcel Energy Center, now recently renamed Grand Casino Arena).

The Sabers were a top team in Class AA in 2024-25 during Pederson’s junior year. The city of Shakopee even got to host and participate in Hockey Day Minnesota that winter and the team was also filmed as a part of the ‘Dream State’ series from State of Hockey too, so there was a lot to get excited about if you were a fan of the squad last season. Eventually, the team did make it to the Minnesota state tournament in March but unfortunately would lose their quarterfinal match-up to St. Thomas Academy in an extremely close 2-1 game in which Pederson scored the lone goal for the Sabers.

“I remember a little bit like seeing it hit the back of the net and I was so excited, I was just ready to skate down the ice and get a celly going because I remember watching all of the older guys growing up doing that so it was definitely something that I had to do,” he said about what he remembers from that moment of scoring a goal in front of thousands of fans at the state tournament. He said that it felt good to score at that moment because he previously got a pass before that play happened from his teammate Cooper Simpson where he wasn’t able to originally score with it and was a bit bummed to not have capitalized on it but he then got another pass from Simpson shortly after and was finally able to score with that one.

Despite losing that quarterfinal match-up to the Cadets, Shakopee went on to win its next two games against Andover and Lakeville South to win the Class AA consolation title - which is the first time that the Sabers had ever done so. Pederson had a very succesful season in 2024-25 by scoring 52 points through 27 games which was the second most on the entire roster. The only skater with more points than Pederson on the team last season is the aforementioned Simpson who was then selected in the third round of the 2025 NHL Draft by the Boston Bruins.

After having a highly successful three years of high school hockey, Pederson has now decided to make the full-time jump to the USHL for his senior season in 2025-26. It has been working out well for the Shakopee native so far just a few games into the year as he is currently centering the top line for the Lincoln Stars and has three points through five games.

The USHL season just stared over the past few weeks and Lincoln is still in the hunt for its first win with a 0-5 overall record but the team has played in a handful of close games already so their first win is likely just around the corner.

“There’s always up and downs and we’re just hitting the start of the year so I think we’re all just starting to come together as a group,” he said about the Stars team this fall. “I think there’s some things that we can work on and get better at but I think there’s some things that we’re doing well too and overall just as a group you have to keep working hard and then in games keep our compete high. I think we’ll be in a good position.”

Pederson will spend this season working hard in Lincoln and showing off his talents through his playmaking skills, skating, and his overall 200-foot game. The 5-foot-9 forward takes pride in the defensive aspects of his game just as much as he does in scoring goals and making plays. He’ll eventually make his way out to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and will join Head Coach Anthony Noreen and his staff there.