Greene goes red on the ice again

Never let it be said that Matt Greene doesn’t use his head. Greene spent three years at the University of North Dakota — his mother is a journalism professor, incidentally — and Greene has made a habit of being a “heady’’ player in a less-comfortable fashion. In the first period last night, Greene stood in front of the net during a Dallas power play and had a puck hit him directly in the forehead. The shot appeared to hit the front of Greene’s helmet, but the helmet cut his forehead. Greene went down momentarily, then got up and skated briskly off the ice. Greene missed the final six minutes of the first period but returned for the start of the second period. After the game, Greene said he was fine, and Terry Murray did as well, nothing that Greene had some swelling. Greene walked around the locker room holding a large ice pack to his forehead. Greene does not wear a visor, so he’s quite fortunate that the shot didn’t hit him a bit lower.

Of course, that wasn’t the first time Greene had “gone red’’ on the ice. In a March 2009 game against Vancouver, Greene voluntarily went down to the ice late in the third period, with the Kings nursing a one-goal lead, to serve as a shot deterrent. Instead, a shot hit him square on the forehead, which opened a cut that led to one of the most iconic photos in recent Kings history, with Jonathan Quick staring at Greene’s bloody mess of a face. In fact, just a couple days ago, Quick had a contest on his Twitter account for fans to come up with a caption for that photo. Maybe a second contest is in order?

Here are the two photos. For the squeamish, be warned, there’s plenty of blood. First, I’ll put a “regular’’ photo of Greene, followed by last night’s photo — in which Greene looks like an extra from “The Walking Dead’’ — followed by the Greene-Quick photo. Which one is more, uh, impressive?