Goldstein suffered a knee injury during North's first loss of the season against Sydney last round and Roos coach Brad Scott is unsure if he will be fit in time for the historic meeting with the Tigers at Blundstone Arena.

The All-Australian big man was one of the driving forces behind Richmond's third consecutive first-week finals exit last year, amassing 46 hitouts and 13 disposals as he dominated opposite number Ivan Maric.

Shaun Hampson has now assumed the No.1 ruck mantle at Richmond as he is viewed as a superior tap ruckman to Maric.

Hampson is ranked eighth in the competition for hitouts this season, despite not having played every game, and Goldstein's absence could see the former Blue have a big impact at the all-important stoppages.

"I don't know whether he'll come up or not. You would think he would," Scott said of Goldstein at Arden Street on Tuesday.

"Generally if he cops a knock he recovers pretty strongly from them but we'll pick him in our side and probably plan on him playing, but have contingencies just in case."

Another star from North Melbourne's elimination final win over Richmond, Ben Jacobs, will certainly be missing as he continues to recover from a foot injury.

Jacobs restricted Tigers skipper Trent Cotchin to a career-worst nine disposals last September but Scott insisted he had other options to fulfil the tagging duties this time around.

Shaun Higgins (knee) and Kayne Turner (hamstring) aside, the Kangaroos have virtually a full list to choose from this week with Taylor Garner (hamstring) and Lachie Hansen (concussion) returning to full fitness.

"What we do have is 18 players available to play for (VFL affiliate) Werribee this weekend," Scott said.

"The (team) changes will probably come from pressure underneath, but it's a great position again for the club ... the availability is good."

Hansen has been sidelined due to a nasty hit to the head from Williamstown player Cameron Lockwood who applied a careless shepherd to the key defender in a VFL game earlier this month.

Lockwood received a two-match suspension for the incident.

Scott described the injury as "concerning" and was still seething about the hit.

"He (Hansen) didn't recover well at all," Scott said.

"It's always worrying when you cop a knock that certainly he wasn't expecting and we were really, really disappointed about it.

"The VFL acted in the way they did in terms of a suspension but Lachie missed more football than the Williamstown player so that's bitterly disappointing."

Kangaroos forward Drew Petrie has struggled recently with a total of just 15 disposals, six marks and no goals in the past fortnight.

But Scott said there was no chance of the veteran being dropped.

"He provides a really consistent baseline level of effort," Scott said.

"With our forward structure it's about the unit itself and as long as the unit is functioning quite well then we're not concerned about individual performances within that."