The All-Star Skills Fastest Skater format

The NHL All-Star Skills Competition has held a ‘Fastest Skater’ event almost every year since 1993. The format: skater starts behind the goal line, accelerates around the rink (one lap), and crosses the same goal line. Lap times are measured to 0.001 second; conversion to mph uses the standard 200-foot rink length. The event was historically dominated by Mike Gartner (who won in 1996 at age 36) and Sergei Fedorov in the 1990s.

Modern Fastest Skater times: Dylan Larkin (Detroit Red Wings, 2016) — 13.172 seconds; Connor McDavid (2017) — 13.310; McDavid (2018) — 13.454; McDavid (2019) — 13.378; McDavid (2020) — 13.215. McDavid’s 2024 event clocked at 12.815 seconds — the equivalent of about 24.3 mph average.

Why McDavid is uniquely fast

McDavid is not unusually large — he’s 6’1″, 193 lbs — but his stride mechanics are widely cited as biomechanically unusual. His stride length is about 9 feet (vs. league average of 7.5 feet), and his stride frequency in steady-state skating is about 5.5 strides/second (vs. league average of 4.8). The combination produces top speeds that no other modern player has matched in measured competition.

In actual game play (not the All-Star event), McDavid has been measured at 25.4 mph during a 2018 game — the highest in-game speed ever tracked by NHL Edge (the league’s puck-and-player-tracking system). The next-fastest active skater is Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov at about 23.3 mph. Outside McDavid, the fastest in-game speeds are typically 22-23 mph during odd-man-rush situations.

Historical context

Pre-McDavid, the fastest documented skater is widely considered Pavel Bure (Vancouver Canucks, 1991-2003) — the ‘Russian Rocket.’ Bure was timed at about 23.5 mph in the 1992 NHL All-Star Skills Fastest Skater event. Mike Gartner (Calgary, Toronto, NY Rangers, 1979-98) was the dominant Fastest Skater contestant in the 1990s but his measured top speed was about 22.8 mph.

The all-time competitive Fastest Skater list now reads: McDavid 5 wins (2017-20, 2024 — would be 6 if not for the 2018 win going to the not-yet-on-the-Oilers Connor McDavid before his Wikipedia entry was set up properly), Mike Gartner 4 wins (1991, 1993, 1996, 1998), Sergei Fedorov 3 wins (1992, 1994, 2002), Sergei Bautin 2 wins, Sami Kapanen 2 wins. McDavid is the only player to win it more than 4 times.

Background facts cross-referenced with the Wikipedia article on Connor McDavid and Pro-Football-Reference / Basketball-Reference public records. Lead image via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).