"It's a great opportunity for us to prove that we can play really good football without Matthew, which I'm really confident about. We've done it before and I'm sure we'll aim to do it again over the ensuing weeks," Lyon said.
But the reality is, Fremantle have struggled without their talisman. The six-time club best and fairest, six-time All-Australian, and eight-time club leading goal-kicker, has missed just 11 matches during his outstanding 282-game career.
Fremantle have won just three.
Pavlich has never missed more than three matches in a season during his 14-year career. The only exception is his first year in 2000 when he wasn't selected for his AFL debut until round five, having been the fourth pick in the 1999 draft from Woodville West-Torrens in South Australia.
But the skipper is set to miss anywhere between four to six weeks of 2013 following surgery on his left Achilles tendon, and the form-line without him looks bleak.
Fremantle did win the last time Pavlich missed a game. They routed North Melbourne by 53 points at Etihad Stadium in round 22 last season.
Pavlich was left out with a hamstring problem before returning to star in the club's first finals victory in Melbourne, a fortnight later.
Before that win over the Kangaroos, Fremantle had lost the previous six matches when Pavlich didn't play.
In 2011, his season ended in round 22. Fremantle lost in round 23 to Collingwood by 80 points and in round 24 to the Western Bulldogs by 46 to finish the year with seven consecutive defeats.
In 2010, in a season when Fremantle won an elimination finalover Hawthorn, they lost in round 21 to those same Hawks in Launceston by 96 points without the services of their skipper.
Pavlich missed three-in-a-row in 2009, as the Dockers slumped to a nine-game losing streak mid-season. But the drought was broken immediately when he returned in the round 17 Western Derby. No surprise that Pavlich collected 36 possessions and two Brownlow votes in the five-point win.
You need to go back to round 22 2008 to find another Pavlich-less Fremantle victory. They beat Collingwood at home by 24 points in a season when the Dockers managed just six wins. Pavlich also missed round 17 and round 21 that year. Fremantle beat Port Adelaide and lost to Richmond in those two matches respectively.
Pavlich's durability has been quite remarkable. The first time he missed a match was round 14, 2001. It was the only time the South Australian did not play in the first 191 matches of his exceptional career.
Fremantle got thumped that Sunday afternoon by Port Adelaide for one of the 20 losses the Dockers suffered that year.
Now the club embarks on at least a month without their best ever player.
How they will fair will tell us exactly how important Pavlich still is to their premiership aspirations.
