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The Peltzman effect theorizes that protective equipment will reduce the price of risky behavior and people will respond rationally by demanding more risk. Chong and Restrepo tracked data NHL players from 2001 to 2006. Here is an excerpt of what Chong and Restrepo found in their study:

Unlike most of the existing empirical evidence produced to this day, we do find that

there is significant compensating or offsetting behavior among hockey players when forced

to wear visors. We estimate that whereas the average penalty minutes per game is 0.8,

visors cause a substantial increase of 0.2 penalty minutes per game. In fact, we find that

players that wear visors play more aggressively, partially offsetting its protective effect and

creating potential spillover effects to other players. We also find that the use of a visor does

not significantly affect performance, measured by goals and assists per game. We conduct

different exercises to check the robustness of our results. In particular, we provide evidence

suggesting that our estimates are not driven by differences in adaptation as players change

leagues; or equivalently, suggesting that the equal trends assumption holds. These results are

meaningful as they imply that, contrary to common belief, mandatory use of visors do not

raise consciousness about safety. On the contrary, visors decrease the cost of unsafe skating,

which increases risk-taking and aggressiveness on the ice. In fact, some hockey commentators

have argued that skating behind a visor provides players with some sense of invincibility that

may actually lead them to skate more aggressively and recklessly. Additionally, players may

become reckless with their sticks if everyone


So what Chong and Restrepo are saying that it doesn't make you more docile, but players seemed to play more aggressively when they wore a visor. And note that the performance measure by goals and assists per game were not significantly affected by wearing a visor.

If MacLean and Milbury's argument is that visor's will cause players to not fight at all when wearing them, I don't buy that. In the WHL it's mandatory to wear visors and they still fight. In the NHL I see players with visor's fighting. Some players take it off before the fight, and some don't, but the fights still happen. A mandatory rule would most likely not change that aspect of the game. And with the evidence shown in Chong and Restrepo's paper, we can see that players with visors play more aggressively.