The EURO League saw a few more changes in the last three days as teams continued to tweak their rosters. Nothing too earth-shattering; a lesser free agent here, a former cast-off there, and then suddenly – out of the azur – Milan’s Antti Niemi is in Gothenberg!

Move the rocking chair, Marty Brodeur, there’s a new sheriff in the Devils’ goal crease. Take a back seat, young Anders Lindberg, preferably behind the back seat you took behind Brodeur. Niemi, 30, came from Milan in a trade for Gothenberg’s first- and third-round picks in the next EURO draft. He earns $3.8 million and has allowed just over 3 goals per game in 112 games with the Guerriero.  On paper, he is far better than the 41-year-old, $5.75 million Brodeur and the young Swedish backup.  But he will have to perform well early and often in Sweden, where Finns are not given the benefit of the doubt. He faces the same potential criticism that Swede Henrik Lundqvist faces on his home rink in Helsinki. Niemi is the lone Finn on the Devils roster.

In Milan, Niemi’s departure relieves a logjam of sorts, although Niemi was clearly the best of the four goalies under contract. Now Canadian  Josh Harding and American Ben Bishop will split goaltending duties until one emerges as the number one guy.

In other news, Paris didn’t reward coach Randy Cunneyworth,  who directed Les Rouges Eiffels to a Cup win a few weeks ago, with a raise from his $350,000 salary. Instead, they handed Cunneyworth a pink slip and handed Michel Therrien a $1.5 million contract. Despite the Cup win, the fact Cunneyworth could not speak French dogged him throughout his days in Paris and earned him a daily diet of insults from the fans who called in to French sports radio stations. Therrien won’t have that problem.

Two other teams – both in Germany – changed coaches today. Berlin dumped Dale Hunter and signed Adam Oates as his replacement; while Munich showed Claude Noel the door and gave his job to Bob Hartley.

A bunch of players have been waived by their clubs and could wind up in new cities a few days after the season begins, but many other players who were without contracts have been signed to new squads. Among the changes:

• Belfast’s newest starter, Mark Streit , who scored 10 or more goals from the point in each of his two seasons in Madrid;
• forward Benn Ferriero, who earned fourth-line duty in Copenhagen last season, is on the Stockholm Eagles today;
• Tim Connolly, who scored 19 goals in each of the last two seasons in Bratislava and was signed by Zurich this week.;
• Milan continues to get younger by signing three 23-year-olds who haven’t played a game yet in the league: Paul Postma, Chris Tanev and Drayson Bowman.
• London will plug two veteran centers into its very young lineup this season, signing Manny Malhotra ( 157 games played in Zurich) and Matt Stajan (65 games in Helsinki and Prague).  Both vets will have a hard time getting top ice time at center in London, with Tyler Bozak, Jeff Skinner and Tyler Seguin already there.