NORTH Melbourne vice captain Drew Petrie is "hopeful" the Kangaroos can acquire Nick Dal Santo after being impressed in a recent meeting with the St Kilda midfielder.

Dal Santo met with the Roos' leadership group last week in a fact finding mission for both parties.

Petrie said there was no doubt Dal Santo would add something extra to the Roos' midfield and was hopeful he would move clubs in the coming weeks.

"I'm hearing it's out of two, Essendon and us, and strange things have happened in the trade period," Petrie said on Friday.

"If we can get him as a free agent that would be nice. If we have to trade to get him it might take a little bit longer.

"I haven't got any inside word at the moment but I'm very hopeful we'll get him."

Petrie said the meeting between Dal Santo and the leadership group had allowed both parties to find out if the experienced midfielder would fit in well at Arden Street.

"It was just [about finding out] if he wanted to come to us, he wanted to find out about North Melbourne and we wanted to find out about Nick's intentions and how much longer he thinks he can play and where he can play positionally," he said.

"It was just a mutual discussion about him wanting to know about North and about us asking him about his intentions going forward.

"It's still his decision and it's up in the air and it has to be done through the right processes."

Petrie said Dal Santo would add outside run to the Roos' midfield and assist

the younger players coming through.

"Nick's a classy footballer and he'll complement our midfield at the moment," he said.

"We've got some good youngsters along with Brent Harvey and Daniel Wells so to throw in Nick if we got him into that mould as well would just give us a little bit more depth again and a bit more quality.

"We've got plenty of good inside ball users but to get another running wingman type midfielder would really help us going forward."