But now?

“I’ve been getting an opportunity that I haven’t really gotten since I’ve been here,” he said thoughtfully. “So I think that finally having my coach showing some confidence in me is a big deal.”

This year, Ted Donato ’91 began his rookie season as Harvard skipper with a wide-open door, ready to apportion ice time for those who earned it before his eyes—not those who had been given it in previous years.

“I just wanted to let him know that in my mind, it was a fresh start,” said Donato at the beginning of the season, “that he could be kind of a hidden gem for us if he could catch lightning in a bottle and be able to showcase his skills for us.”

The coach was frank, however, cautioning Lederman that the senior’s time to adapt was limited.

“I wanted to provide him an opportunity,” Donato explained, “but I also was very honest with him, and I said that it was something that I wasn’t able to afford, as coach, to let go a long time.”

With nine incoming freshmen, six of whom were forwards, Donato couldn’t clog a precious spot on the line charts and wait for Lederman to turn the corner—which, of course, the Canadian might never do.

“If he were a freshman or a sophomore, he would have a little more running room,” said Donato. “But since he’s a senior, he needed to run with it right away.”

And he did. But why now, his last Harvard season? Why didn’t Mark Mazzoleni, the Crimson’s coach from 1999 to 2004, play the skater whom he deemed “one of the more offensively skilled players” on the team?

Nobody is quite willing to answer that one explicitly.

“I think a lot of it is maturity,” assistant captain Ryan Lannon offered. “[Lederman] definitely had a tough time stepping into the lineup as more of a skilled guy and trying to make his impact known [in previous years].”

Sean McCann ’94, now an assistant to Donato and the only current coach who also worked with Mazzoleni, was equally diplomatic.

“Sometimes,” he said, “you tend to get stuck in a position...and with a new coaching staff, the door is open.”

Mazzoleni himself cannot explain the change that has led to Lederman’s success.

“That’s hard for me,” he said, “because I haven’t seen him play this year.