While Johnson's worrying foot injury will sideline him again, coach Chris Scott on Tuesday named six players the Cats would like to see again at senior level before the finals, and teased that a debut for Jake Kolodjashnij or Jarrad Jansen wouldn't scare them either.

He mused that Bartel (corked thigh) and Jordan Murdoch (hip) could both be passed fit yet still not play, while noting that Hawkins was clearly restricted against Carlton last week and would be rested if expert opinion advised it.

Approaching Saturday night knowing another finals meeting with the Hawks may be only a fortnight away, Scott pondered, "If this game really mattered ..." In the realm of football's great modern rivalry, this was cat and mouse of Tom and Jerry proportions.

One certainty will be the absence for a second week of Johnson, who has been on crutches for the past 10 days and who Scott admitted he could not guarantee would be seen again this year. He insisted the club's medicos remain "very confident" he will be fit for the last round against Brisbane Lions.

"We won't know for sure until he does weight-bear, but given we've talked about how conservative we're going to be, I wouldn't be putting him in your Supercoach team this week," Scott said on Tuesday.

"The message I've received clearly from our medical staff is that this is not a long-term thing, but it needs to be managed in the 'acute phase', which is generally two weeks or so, and then he'll be able to play after that. They're very confident.

"You can't guarantee anything, but they're saying they're certain, as certain as they can be."

The coach admitted the exact nature of the injury remained unclear, but an extreme case would be a fracture - which scans have cleared Johnson of. The star midfielder is still experiencing discomfort, with Scott adding that the need to not only prove his fitness but train hard to make up for lost time on the track effectively rules him out of the Hawthorn clash.

"We'll certainly train him pretty hard before he actually plays, so it's not a matter of putting the boots on off crutches on Friday and playing on a Saturday. That would lead most observers to think he's a stretch for this week, but he's certainly not a stretch for the week after."

Bartel missed the narrow win over the Blues, and while he trained at Simonds Stadium on Tuesday, his coach hinted that the conservative approach adopted with Johnson might apply to some of his teammates too against a premiership fancy whose 2013 preliminary final win against the Cats stands as its sole triumph from the teams' past 13 meetings.

Scott said Hawkins was medically sound, but he would not hesitate to rest him if the big forward would benefit. Of Murdoch and Bartel he said: "There is some chance the medical staff will say, 'They're right to play, there's no risk', and we won't play them anyway.

"We've got some young players we'd like to see again, and some other guys at VFL level who are pushing their case. That might give us the opportunity to be conservative with the senior players but also give opportunity to others."

Mitch Brown, Josh Walker, Jackson Sheringham, Darcy Lang, Brad Hartman and Jesse Stringer all received endorsement as possible inclusions, while Scott reiterated that playing a debutant on the cusp of the finals "doesn't scare us that much, particularly if they're performing well".

While admitting he would have liked to see more from Shane Kersten in the second key forward post, Scott remained buoyant about the 21-year-old's prospects of being "a handful" for the opposition if they back him in for the finals. "Brown and Walker are pushing hard for that spot ... but none of those players I've mentioned have done enough to guarantee a spot in our finals team."

The Cats' preferred line-up is yet to be settled, and if their coach is true to his word, there could be more to play for on Saturday night than four points.