COLLINGWOOD skipper Nick Maxwell has confirmed he is likely to return from injury for Friday night's clash with Geelong at the MCG.

Maxwell hasn't played since breaking his thumb in the Magpies' win over St Kilda in round 21, but he proved his fitness by training strongly on Tuesday.

"It's not outside [the realms of] possibility," Maxwell said on Wednesday's edition of Dream Team TV.

"Definitely a chance, but I've got some boxes to tick tomorrow at training and then Mick [Malthouse] will make his decision."

Maxwell underwent surgery on his fractured thumb two days after the game against the Saints, and it was initially feared he would be sidelined until the latter weeks of the finals.

Instead, he has quickly recovered from the setback.

"It's going really well, to this point," Maxwell said. "I actually did a lot of training yesterday and I'll train again tomorrow.

"I've never said that I'm going to come back at this date or I'm going to miss this many games, I've just been trying to get past each day and do what I have to do each day.

"I've been super-impressed by how it's come along to this point, and how much I've been able to do, so hopefully I can just keep ticking those boxes each day and I'll be back sooner rather than later."

Despite the game against the Cats being a "dead rubber", Maxwell says Collingwood won't rest gun midfielder Scott Pendlebury, who has played every game in the home and away season so far.

"I think Pendles will be around," Maxwell said, allaying the fears held by many Dream Team coaches.

"Trying to tell him to miss a game would be pretty tough. I think he'd probably come to blows with Mick [if the coach tried to rest him].

"I think we will go into the game with as strong a line-up as we can.

"Only anyone who has any niggles between now and then won't play, because when you play a quality outfit like Geelong you need to make sure you've got 22 players who can go out there and play well.

"I'd expect our best team to be out there. The Swans, Pendleburys, Thomases and Trav Clokes -I'd expect all those guys to play."

Maxwell also has some valuable advice for the Dream Team coaches who are struggling to decide whether they should make Dane Swan or Scott Pendlebury their captain this weekend.

"I had 'Swanny' last week and 'Pendles' was actually the one who got a lot more [points], so it's tough," he said.

"We don't know who they're going to tag, who 'Lingy' [Cats captain Cameron Ling] will go to.

"He seems to swap between the two of those guys, and I think he's even been to 'Daisy' [Dale Thomas] at one stage, so it's tough.

"Go with whoever has performed better for you to this point. For me, [I'm] probably just leaning towards Swanny.

"He tends to be a lot better in Dream Team because he tends to get so damn much of [the ball]."