I don't know if that's true depending on how long the race is. Top speed, sure, but would a speed skater beat an NHL player in a 1 lap race with those clunky skates? I know speed skaters get up to like 35mph but that's after settling in after a lap or two. Hockey players hit top speed in seconds.
No no, speed skaters would destroy NHL players. Not even close. Those "clunky skates" have extra long blades that those skaters can leverage for extra power.
An NHL rink is 61M x 26M. So, a full lap would be 174M . but that's if they were literally hugging the boards. In reality they cut from the side board to the net, circle the net, and cut back to the sideboard at centre on the other side. They're really covering somewhere around 140M. And they do so, in about 13.5second.
the 500M speed skating record is about 34 seconds. And they cover a FULL 500M.
So, if you multiply 140M by 3.5 you get about 490 metres. Multiply 13.5 seconds by 3.5, and you get 47 seconds. A full 13 seconds slower.
Granted, you'd have hockey players going full speed by the end of the first lap, so the subsequent laps would be faster. But surely there is no way in H - E - double hockey sticks that would make up 13 seconds in a 34 second race.
For more reference, it was news that McDavid was clocked at 40km/h last year. The top speed skaters get clocked at 53 or 54 km/h in the sprints. Like
30% faster. It really isn't close at all.