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.)