What about players that can't shoot? Can't hit? Can't handle the puck? Have limited to no physical strength/small frame and are easily moved off the puck? Everything in sports management and the subset of drafting is about managing tradeoffs and making calculated bets on which players have the best combination of skills and projectability at the top level of play. Pick your poison, lots of guys are lightning fast skaters and never make it because they can't read the play well enough at the pro level.
Skating is obviously very important to hockey, but I see no reason why you should categorically write off any player who's a poor skater at any stage in the draft. It's not really comparable to water polo as we're talking about skaters who are mediocre relative to the top ~800 skaters on the planet but are still basically competent navigating the ice as hockey players, not water polo players who are struggling to prevent themselves from drowning.
This is a strange group of guys to lump together. Crisp was drafted as a goon, Hudon made it to the NHL and had a decent career, and McShane/Fonstad were mid/late picks that had solid production in their draft years and just didn't progress. It happens, but it's not a reason to just write off anyone who's not an above average skater on draft day. Of course skating is valuable, and I'm certainly not saying the team should just pick the guys with the best hands in any situation and ignore skating, but I don't see why you would just write off every player that isn't an average skater on draft day.
It really just doesn't make sense to me. Outside of the top handful of picks every player in the draft is going to have some discernable weakness, and if you're picking high end skaters in the 4th+ rounds that's usually going to be either because they're 5'4" or have hands of stone. Those are just as difficult hurdles to overcome to be a capable NHL player as skating.
