Pavlich, who has missed Fremantle's last three matches with a calf injury, will need to get through a closed training session on Wednesday but said he was expecting to be passed fit to take on cross-town rival West Coast.
"I trained really well over the weekend and then again yesterday morning," he said from Fremantle Oval on Tuesday. "I'm running at 100 per cent.
"If it's too much of a risk and I'm going to be a liability then I won't play, but I'm certainly positive that's not going to be the case and once I get through tomorrow afternoon's session we'll definitely know that.
"[Sandilands] trained really well again yesterday. I would say he's certain to play."
Pavlich said teammates Byron Schammer (calf) and Des Headland (hamstring) were both unlikely to play, while Chris Tarrant had bounced back well after jarring his knee against the Brisbane Lions on Saturday night.
"[Tarrant] came back with a pretty good scan result and he's been moving pretty well, so we're hoping he'll play," Pavlich said.
Fremantle has won six of the last seven derbies, including the last four in a row, and Pavlich said there was no doubt his side would go in confident.
But with West Coast only one game ahead of the bottom-placed Fremantle, and a number of personnel changes in both camps, Pavlich said it was sure to be an even contest.
"There's no question that there might be some confidence [for us] or some doubt from their end, but when both teams are in the situation that they're in with three and four wins respectively, it's going to be a really even contest," Pavlich said.
"We did match up on them quite well a few years ago – when their gun midfield was doing quite well we had some negators who'd do some pretty good jobs on those players.
"But the teams have changed significantly."
While Headland is unlikely to return from a hamstring injury this week, Pavlich said the club would not be revealing what sanctions, if any, had been handed down to the senior midfielder after he was implicated in a late-night brawl at the weekend.
Headland and draftee Michael Walters were both caught up in a police investigation into a brawl that took place around 1am on Sunday morning in the inner Perth suburb of Leederville.
Pavlich said the matter had been handled internally and a decision had been made.
He added that Fremantle players do have a curfew.
"We handle all of these situations by a case-by-case scenario," he said.
"The players need to make the correct decisions and, not sort of be robots, but make the correct decisions of times and places.
"We've certainly handled the situation internally with the leadership group, put a recommendation in and obviously the club has as well. That's about all we can say about it."
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