I went through takeaway data [edit: even-strength only] for the last couple of years to see if there was anything useful there. (I used only road data because home data is awful – there's no agreement in different rinks on what constitutes a takeaway, so we see 10:1 swings in the rate at which takeaways are awarded.) The leaderboard is pretty amazing:
Datsyuk – 96
Thornton – 63
Kesler – 58
B. Ryan – 55
Bergeron – 52
Toews – 52
Zajac – 51
M. Koivu – 49
Weiss – 48
Neal – 47
Gomez – 47
Kopitar – 47
This list suggests that takeaways do in fact represent a true talent, but I'm most-impressed by Datsyuk and his 50% lead over the 2nd-place finisher. Datsyuk also only gave the puck up 34 times on the road (vs 46 for Thorton, e.g.)
