Bailey has had to deal with the loss of important trio Cale Morton, Daniel Bell and Liam Jurrah to long-term injuries in the past fortnight and will be looking for their replacements to announce themselves against West Coast at Casey Fields on Saturday afternoon.
"Last week and this week are going to be really good indicators of our round-one team and there's pressure on for spots," Bailey said from Junction Oval on Friday.
"Opportunities have come through injury which is disappointing, but we've got to be worried about the 22 that will round out in round one against the Hawks.
"I think someone like Stef Martin has probably got to give us a little bit more than what he has in the last couple of weeks. Matthew Bate comes back into the team and he gives us a different dimension than what LJ does, because Matthew's an outside 50 goal kicker as well.
"Ricky Petterd has kicked two lots of four [goals] in the pre-season and all of a sudden he's given us something that last year he showed us a little bit of but this year he's finishing his work.
"I think those three are the ones who will get some opportunities to show what they've got on the weekend."
Top draft picks Tom Scully and Jack Trengove remain on track to make their debuts on the first weekend of the season with both impressing the coach since joining the club.
"They've been very good and they've handled all the pressure incredibly well," he said.
"The advantage that those two blokes have had is that they've been able to do most of the training, so therefore they've been able to adapt early.
"They've also been able to adapt to game time and recovery - that's been really important. If they were sore or their recovery was affected from game to game then obviously we'd have to assess where they're at, but they've recovered really well.
"They've been very good, they've played very well and their maturity in handling the pressure in games has been fantastic. I'm sure that they'll be in the mix."
With Morton, Bell and Jurrah set for long absences and skipper James McDonald counted as a veteran, the Dees have plenty of scope to elevate a rookie or two in the early part of the season.
However, Bailey is content to monitor the progress of his rookies in the coming weeks before making any decisions.
The Demons' injury list is lengthier than the coach would like at this stage of the year, but Bailey remains confident his side will be able to put into practice the lessons learned on the track over summer.
"We'll still go with the structures we've been practicing with over pre-season. It's just that the names of the personnel changes and therefore they bring something different to that role," he said.
"The big test this week with some senior players coming back is that we need to make sure that the intensity of the last two weeks remains and we get the right result for us, which is winning the game."
