Maybe it's because the sport isn't growing very quickly outside of the countries that always end up showing up at the Olympics.
Sweden, Finland, America, Canada and Russia have been producing quality players for a while now. Once in a while we get a solid player from Czech Republic, Solvakia, Switzerland or Germany and in the past a few of those teams have had a handful of great players, but right now none of these 4 countries are consistent at pumping out solid hockey players.
That's 8 countries and there are a ton of sports out there that get a lot of exposure now. Hockey will probably always be #1 in Canada and it'll probably never be a a top 4 sport in basketball and I don't know the other countries well enough to know where hockey ranks, but I don't think it's a stretch to say that hockey is probably as influential in the big 5 as it's ever going to be.
If we want another goat we need a larger player pool and that involves getting more countries into the sport. Considerably assets and time has been spent selling hockey to China, but I highly doubt we'll see a great Chinese player playing in the NHL. There are a bunch of problems.
#1 - China has 1.4 billion people, but there are less than 500 combined indoor and outdoor skating rinks throughout the entire country.
#2 - The areas of China with the highest population density are freaking hot. Tons of people there haven't met snow and I highly doubt there's an interest in building enough skating rinks to even give people the chance to give hockey a chance.
#3 - In China before university your parents either enroll you in a regular public/private school, they send you to an art/dance school (don't need to learn a 2nd language, history or science classes) or if you're really lucky someone identifies you as athletically gifted and you're allowed to attend a sports academy where you have a much lighter study load like at the art/dance schools. Doesn't fix the language barrier.
#4 - There's a stigma attached to all contact sports in China. Heck, I've heard parents tell me that soccer and recreational skiing are dangerous sports that they worry about their children participating in.
Yes, there are hundreds of countries out there, maybe NHL's choice to try to get China into it is just the wrong one. Maybe one day they'll target some other countries that will become more suitable and we can find our next GOAT.