The “Immediate Lateral Step / Heel Ladder Step” gets its name from the fact that your heels face up ice as you immediately switch your skates to prepare for your backwards acceleration. The “Ladder Step” (nickname for “Lateral Step”), gets its name from the fact that you are not crossing over, but rather are doing a short, sidestep. The advantages of this transition is that you are not committed to your crossover, so you are able to keep better foot positioning, as attacking players cannot go 1 way while you are crossing the other way. It is because of this, that the “Heel Lateral Step” is commonly used on 1-on-1 gap-up type situations, where body positioning against the attacking player is of most importance. Another advantage is that because the “Lateral Step” takes less time to complete then a crossover, you can make your next move or push, sooner than if you had crossed over. The disadvantage, on the other hand, is that (especially with beginners or younger players), there is a lack of power and speed compared to crossing over. Generally when working with players who cannot accelerate that well with this transition, we teach them not to use it in games until they can get more proficient at it. This ensures they don’t just get burned wide because they are too slow transitioning backwards. Elite forwards use the defenceman’s crossovers to exploit them, and elite defencemen, work hard to not cross their feet. The “Lateral Step” is a big part of that.