And Kucherov hadn’t even broken out yet in 2016 and 2017. In the last two seasons, it’s more like trading ~8 goals for, what, 40 assists?
In both of the last two seasons, Kucherov, who has already "broken out", was 10 goals behind Ovechkin. I am very skeptical of his ability to close this gap by "sacrificing assists" and calling Kucherov "a better goal-scorer" than Ovechkin based on some imaginary goals he could have scored (or not) seems to me a complete abandoning of reality.
Ovechkin has a unique shot, he can score from the top of the circle even if the goalie is not screened. If other guys start taking those shots instead of looking for a pass, it is not going to get them anywhere - which is the reason why they do not. That applies even to Kucherov, who does have a good shot, not to mention Marchand and Gaudreau, who cannot mimic Ovechkin even if their life depended on it.
Ovechkin also has a unique ability to adjust his body to take a shot. His "in the wheelhouse" zone is extremely big. A pass goes across the ice, and the puck is rolling and wobbling, and it is going two feet behind Ovechkin's skates - he somehow twists his body, shoots while falling and it is still a hard and dangerous shot. Pretty much everyone would stop the puck without taking a shot and then would look for a pass - because anyone else's shot in this situation would be a disaster.
That's why Ovechkin led the league in shots 11 times already. If anyone else takes Ovechkin's spot in the circle and starts firing shots every time the puck comes to him, this is not going to yield Ovechkin's goal totals, this is going to yield tons of missed shots or weak throws towards the net.
This is not to say that Kucherov is a worse player or contributes less offensively than Ovechkin. I am just saying Kucherov is different. Players have unique traits, they are not video game characters of "100-point player" type, for which you move the bar and select a desired combination of goals/assists. Especially unique are rare abilities like scoring 50 goals per season or collecting 80 assists per season - being an ordinary player with 1:1.5 goals:assists ratio does not require a special skill set, but being a perennial leader in goals does.
Notice how Crosby - the other Rocket Richard winner of the past 4 seasons - had his worst assists-per-game number of his career thus far in 2017 when he won the Rocket Richard? He moved the change.
To me, Crosby's 16/17 example is an example of quite the opposite: by the eye-test, 16/17 was one of his best seasons, he also had shooter's luck on his side and posted career-high shooting %. And yet he scored 44 goals, +8 from the season before that, and definitely did not get into Ovechkin's territory. So when you say right after that
The difference between current Ovechkin and Kane and Kucherov and Crosby and all of these other great goal scorers who are massively outpointing Ovechkin isn’t a difference in goal-scoring ability but a difference in preference of pockets.
I am not sure where this is coming from. Crosby's 16/17 is the best proof one can have that even if Crosby turns inside out, he is not reaching healthy Ovechkin's goal totals. Same goes for Kucherov and the current version of Kane. They just do not have the goal-scoring skill of Ovechkin - just like they do not have the shot to break Chara's "hardest shot" record or the speed to catch McDavid. They can be great players regardless, they can be better than Ovechkin in some seasons despite scoring less goals, but just like they cannot have McDavid's speed no matter what they sacrifice in other areas, they cannot have Ovechkin's goal-scoring prowess.
You say that like someone who either forgot or never knew that Joe Thornton used to be a pretty good goal scorer in the DPE before skewing heavily towards playmaking. He’s basically the poster child for how goal to assist ratios are as much about choice as anything.
Jumbo Joe was such a great goal-scorer that he got over 30-goal mark twice in his career - in early 20s, which are peak goal-scoring years for almost everyone, his career high was 37 goals (16th in the league). That does not look like a great goal-scorer at all.
On the other hand, he had 29 goals in two of his seasons when he led the league in assists. He sacrificed nothing, he just developed his playmaking skill. Playmakers usually peak later than goal-scorers, they have to figure things out. Thornton did, and his assists went through the roof - but not because he gave up on trying to be a goal-scorer. He was still taking the shots he potentially could score from, and scored the goals he could score - those declined a bit in his late 20s compared to his early 20s, because nearly everyone's goal-scoring ability declines slowly after 22-24. But his passing game improved significantly - including those passes he had to make because he could not score in the situations Kovalchuk or Ovechkin or Selanne would score in.
