Essendon has regained Joe Daniher but lost Dyson Heppell and Michael Hurley to injury for Saturday's clash with Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.

Hurley has an inflamed ankle joint, while Heppell will undergo surgery to fix an issue with a screw in the ankle he fractured in June.

Irving Mosquito (ACL) and omitted pair Cale Hooker and Mason Redman also exit the side which lost to Geelong on Sunday, with Tom Cutler, Brayden Ham, Mitch Hibberd and Andrew Phillips joining Daniher as inclusions.

Senior coach Worsfold shed some light on Heppell's latest setback.

"'Hepp''s ankle has still been a little bit irritated over the last couple of weeks," Worsfold said.

"On investigation, there's a screw that was put in his ankle when he had his initial surgery, which is causing some irritation. He'll need some surgery to address that."

Worsfold also explained the decision to omit Hooker.

"It's just around form. He's not at the level we know he can play at," he said.

"There's been a number of games over short breaks, and we know he missed a big chunk of footy prior to that, so we felt he wasn't going to be able to perform at the level we require."

Essendon and Port Adelaide will go head-to-head from 5:05pm AEST, with the action shown live on Fox Footy.

ESSENDON'S ROUND 17 LINE-UP:

Backs: Jordan Ridley, Brandon Zerk-Thatcher, Martin Gleeson
Half-backs: Adam Saad, Devon Smith, Mitch Hibberd
Centre: Tom Cutler, Zach Merrett, Kyle Langford
Half-forwards: Jake Stringer, Joe Daniher, Brayden Ham
Forwards: Will Snelling, James Stewart, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti
Followers: Sam Draper, Dylan Shiel, Jacob Townsend
Interchange: Andrew Phillips, Matt Guelfi, Dylan Clarke, Darcy Parish
Emergencies: Josh Begley, Mason Redman, Cale Hooker, Kobe Mutch