Makar and Clarke are both GREAT at these deceptive moves where their legs are out wide, heavily on their inside edges, and they use great ankle and hip mobility to manoeuvre quickly and unpredictably. This sort of thing:
Or countless examples here:
Makar is amazing on his inside edges - when he's walking the line and undressing guys, very often he's on both inside edges, in that 10-2 stance, moving in directions that defenders don't expect. Clarke is great at that too, getting into that stance where a lot of guys don't have good mobility/direction changes, but nonetheless changing directions rapidly, which really fools defenders. e.g. countless examples here:
As I noted, Clarke doesn't have the raw speed that you see from guys like Makar, Dahlin, MacKinnon. He's certainly not on their level as a skater, overall, and I agree that his stance often looks a bit "bender"-y (knock kneed, lateral ankle flexion). But once you get over the superficial "looks weird" bits, he does have excellent agility/deceptive edgework, where he's super active with his hips and ankles, very hard to stick with in tight spaces, and just really unpredictable and mobile on those inside edges. This is a big element of Makar/Dahlin/MacKinnon's skating too.
Again, I don't think Clarke is an elite skater, but I think skating is overall a strength of his, not a weakness, once you get over the superficial appearance of his stance. Looks weird but is effective. His straight line speed is average/fine, and he's very mobile/agile/deceptive in tight spaces, especially on his inside edges.