I disagree, a story is like looking at a finished picture puzzle, the specifics are the pieces that make the puzzle, if you have two puzzles with different pieces but end up with the same picture it’s really irrelevant that the pieces were different.
But what you’re describing is that the whole picture is just the plot. That’s silly. The picture would be the story. The plot would just be what the shapes are that put the pieces together. But it’s a bad analogy.
Think of it more like a building. The plot is just the foundation. It’s what you build on top of that that really matters.