Franklin was withdrawn from the Hawks' squad on Saturday and replaced by first-gamer Jordan Lisle after he failed to come up from calf soreness he detected during the week.
After Sunday's win, coach Alastair Clarkson said Franklin would be assessed early in the week to ascertain whether it's a cork or a strain.
"It just came out of the blue for us mid-week; one of the more terrible things to come out of the blue, really, when your key forward [goes down]," Clarkson said.
"We seemed to battle early in the game without him but we'll just have to wait and see.
"I'm obviously not a doctor so I couldn't tell you if he's going to come up or not. We're very hopeful that he will but it will be a wait and see until we see how he recovers over the next couple of days."
The Hawks will be looking to halt a five-game losing streak against the Cats and atone for the 19-point defeat they were handed by Chris Scott's men in round five this year.
However, Clarkson said on Saturday calf injuries were not to be treated lightly.
"He finished the game last week and didn't even report an injury to the medical staff," he said at training.
"It just got a little bit sore on the Tuesday and we had it scanned, it showed a little bit of a bleed.
"We'll have to see how it settles over the course of the next week, but we don't think it's serious."
He also said Franklin had been close to playing against Fremantle but the club was simply not prepared to risk him.
"We thought he was going to be right and we tried to train him [on Friday], but he just wasn't any good, the way he's pulled up," Clarkson said.
"He was very, very close to being able to play, but with calves if you don't respect them, they can turn into four or five-week injuries."
