COLLINGWOOD coach Craig McRae is ready to get creative as the Magpies attempt to salvage their premiership defence without midfielder Jordan De Goey.

The explosive De Goey suffered a season-ending high-grade hamstring injury in the stirring win over Carlton on Saturday night.

While Nick Daicos is the star of Collingwood's midfield, the explosive De Goey is arguably its irreplaceable barometer.

"We don't replace Jordy – I don't think he's replaceable to be honest – but then we look at other avenues and other options for us," McRae said on Tuesday.

"His centre-bounce work is as good as anyone in the competition and his impact on games – we saw what he could do in the game just gone in only a half of footy, so he really has high impact.

"So hard to replace, but we'll find someone ... we'll look what we do. 

"He can play as a midfielder and forward and sometimes plays in between those phases. We'll look a bit deeper what that looks like."

De Goey was limited to just 13 games this year between groin and abdominal injuries.

"He's been chasing his tail this year, Jordy," McRae said.

"You would've seen at training, he couldn't get through many sessions and then we were struggling to get him to the line."

Fellow premiership midfielder Tom Mitchell (foot) also won't play again this season.

Collingwood will aim to back up its win over the Blues with an upset victory over ladder leader Sydney at the SCG on Friday night.

Sydney, which has lost five of its past six games, are coming off a shock 112-point thumping from Port Adelaide.

"It was a game like I hadn't seen before," McRae said.

"And I think those outlier games are hard to sort of measure. 

"We're certain that we're going to meet an opposition that will go back to the basics and come with what they stand for."

Collingwood sits four points outside the top eight with games against Sydney (SCG), Brisbane (MCG) and Melbourne (MCG) to come.

"This is the competition isn't it? Like every team seems to be going through it," he said.

"I think we lost four games in a row and Geelong lost six or seven and then you look at Sydney going through that now. 

"It's such a tight competition. 

"So we'd like to think we're getting a lot of personnel back that make us a better team and then we're playing at a level that we're starting to build, it's a nice time to build."

McRae confirmed Collingwood was, like other clubs, working through list management decisions.

He wouldn't be drawn on defender Jeremy Howe's future, preferring to celebrate the 34-year-old's 250th game on Friday.