If you are looking for realistic player skills you shouldn't look to HUT. Personally I've never understood why it is so popular, for the reason you mention.
The names on the cards or on the ice doesn't really matter. You can have Cale Makar outskated by Luke Schenn because that particular Luke Schenn happen to be a Super Limited Hip Hop Flop Extreme Deluxe Wizard card (sarcastic made up name) that has nothing to do with the player's real skills, but it is really good to play with. 😌 I would enjoy it a lot more if the players were accurate when I put together a team, so it's easy to stay away for me.
As far as the shot speed goes, I think it's being looked into, because it is indeed way too hard (and is not HUT related I'm fairly sure) and I have reported it.