WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Some conversations are too awkward even for the brotherhood of hockey goalies. Anyway, what could Matt Murray possibly have said to Casey DeSmith if they had spoken since the last day of September?

“When it first happened, people I love — my friends — were kind of texting me: ‘I’m so sorry,’” DeSmith said. “And, honestly, I was, like: You could have said ‘I’m so sorry’ if I had lost the job, if I had played bad.

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“But the way I went down, there’s almost nothing I could say.”

Oh, but there is — and that’s because being a casualty of the NHL’s salary-cap system is something DeSmith hasn’t “really put behind me, to be honest.”

“But I have stop let it bothering me,” he said while leaning against a hallway outside the refurbished home locker room at Mohegan Sun Arena, where DeSmith stopped all 28 shots sent his way by the Hershey Bears in a 1-0 shootout victory for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Nov. 13. It was his second consecutive shutout. A couple nights later, DeSmith surrendered only one goal on 42 shots in the AHL Penguins’ 4-1 home win over the Springfield Thunderbirds.

He had allowed only seven goals in five November starts after giving up 22 goals in seven October appearances.

DeSmith’s return to form did not surprise his former coach in Pittsburgh.

“Casey’s a real good goalie,” Mike Sullivan said Wednesday after a practice at the UPMC Lemieux Sports Complex.

Also after that practice, Sullivan jokingly jostled with a reporter who tried to pry from him which of the Penguins two goalies would start the first of upcoming games on consecutive nights. The Penguins face the Islanders on Thursday in Brooklyn and return to Pittsburgh to play the Devils on Friday at PPG Paints Arena.

DeSmith would have been in the blue paint for one of those games this time a year ago. He had figured on it being that way this time a couple of months ago, too.

Nothing from the previous weeks, let alone the prior months, had prepared Smith for being placed on waivers the morning of Sept. 30. In fact, he slept through the first call from general manager Jim Rutherford.

“It blindsided me,” DeSmith said.

“I probably should have been more aware of what was going on. But, you know, things were said that didn’t end up happening and I was just kind of the byproduct…”

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DeSmith caught himself as though he were freezing a puck.

He is 28. The Penguins thought enough of him to sign him for three years as recently as January. He is in the AHL because that contract counts $1.25 million against their cap, whereas the one on which Tristan Jarry is working comes with a $675,000 hit. Going into the regular season, the Penguins could most easily become cap compliant by risking losing DeSmith, whom many in the organization still see as the ideal backup for Murray, on waivers and keeping Jarry in the NHL.

Still, there is no such thing as a sure thing when it comes to NHL goaltending situations. And it wasn’t that long ago that the Penguins’ greatest goalie showed DeSmith how to handle a demotion.

Marc-Andre Fleury didn’t prioritize his feelings over the Penguins a few years ago. DeSmith didn’t want to do it last week.

Now, back to that “things were said that didn’t end up happening” part…

“Oh, well, you know — just, like, I wasn’t expecting to be down here,” DeSmith said, referring to his AHL assignment. “Nothing was ever said to me that would give me any sort of inkling that I would end up down here.”

There is reason for that, though DeSmith might not take any comfort in it.

Rutherford spent most of training camp trying to create cap space by trading from a glut of defensemen. He had attempted to deal away Jack Johnson and ultimately would move Erik Gudbranson, but Rutherford was unable to make a trade in time to prevent exposing DeSmith to waivers.

“When you kept asking me how I was going to get under the cap, that was it,” Rutherford said, referring to beginning the season with DeSmith in the AHL and Jarry in the NHL.

“We had three goalies we really liked. We ended up keeping all three. Now, that doesn’t mean they’re all going to be happy. I wouldn’t expect them to be, because I don’t think Jarry or DeSmith belong in the AHL. But, well, the salary cap being what it is made for a tough decision.”

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As luck — bad luck — would have it, the Penguins would end up having enough cap space to absorb DeSmith’s salary because of injuries. However, carrying three goalies on the 23-man roster was a bridge too far even for a team that spent most of its opening month with nine defensemen.

Math made it mandatory for DeSmith to begin this season in the AHL.

Jarry’s play is making it more difficult for DeSmith to rejoin the Penguins. Jarry has performed to a 1.77 goals-against average and .947 save percentage in four starts, though his practices seem to have really caught Sullivan’s attention.

“It’s a different type of challenge,” Sullivan said of the backup role. Jarry has played in only five of the Penguins’ 21 games. “You almost have to treat every practice like it’s your game. And Tristan, to his credit, has done that.”

Which is not to suggest that DeSmith wouldn’t have done similarly. Or that DeSmith won’t get the chance.

With captain Sidney Crosby in the first of a minimum six-week recover from sports hernia surgery, the Penguins could remain cap compliant — albeit temporarily — because of the availability of the long-term injury designation. Also though, with Crosby out and the Eastern Conference appearing to be vastly deeper this season, the Penguins are equally more likely to consider packaging assets for another scorer and less willing to stick with a backup goalie who falls into a funk.

By continuing to excel, Jarry could play his way into a trade.

By falling off from his early level, Jarry could play himself onto waivers (even if Rutherford believes he would be claimed).

Either situation would bring DeSmith back to Pittsburgh, where his wife — he was married over the summer — is living in the house they closed on around the same time he was sent to Wilkes-Barre.

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DeSmith is living out of a hotel while playing in the AHL. “I didn’t want to pay for an apartment and a mortgage,” he said.

First-season Wilkes-Barre/Scranton coach Mike Vellucci said he needed only one conversation with DeSmith about “the situation” before becoming convinced DeSmith would “work though his frustrations and play like he has been recently.” Vellucci was patient with DeSmith, in part because he saw “a person, not the goalie, going through something really big in his life.”

“It wasn’t an easy conversation to have because, look, Casey didn’t do anything to end up with us,” Vellucci said. “This is one of those business of hockey things. That probably makes it harder.”

No probably about it, actually.

“Absolutely it would have been easier if I simply lost a job, if I hadn’t come into camp prepared. I could have placed that blame on myself,” DeSmith said. “It was hard to lay my frustrations on myself because I didn’t feel I had let myself down

“I felt like I’d earned a spot in that locker room.”

Instead, DeSmith finds himself in one that actually is different from his last stint with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The stalls are new, and so are most of the prospects whose gear hangs in them. And when those players look at DeSmith, they don’t see a goalie done in by the NHL salary cap.

“I’m an NHL veteran to most of those guys,” DeSmith said. “And I’m the starting goalie. Like, it’s my job, and that’s not a privilege I’ve had too often in my career. So, I’m really enjoying that and being around these younger guys, a lot of this.

“But getting back to the NHL, whether it’s in Pittsburgh or somewhere else, is still my No. 1 priority. So, I wouldn’t say I’ve put it all behind me.”

(Photo: Joe Sargent / Getty Images)