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.)