Goodes, who has a history of knee troubles, fought an unsuccessful battle to return from knee surgery late in the just-completed season.
With 331 career games under his belt, Goodes is the club's all-time leader, but he made just 12 appearances in 2013, comfortably the lowest total of his career.
He overcame a separate knee setback in last year's Grand Final to feature in the opening 12 games of this year, including a stunning performance in the round nine victory over Collingwood at the MCG.
The 33-year-old then suffered another knee injury against Port Adelaide in round 13 and fell short in a bid to return for the Swans' finals campaign.
But coach John Longmire is confident the club can get Goodes fit and firing ahead of round one next year.
"He's not going to do a lot in terms of a lot of ball work until January, but the boys only get back on December 2 anyway," Longmire said.
"He'll be running and doing leg weights until Christmas and hasn't required a further operation.
"We'll then get him into ball work in late January I'd imagine.
"That's the plan. How he goes, we don't know. We expect that's what'll happen, but we expected this year to have him back a lot earlier as well.
"We're confident, with a slower build, he'll be able to withstand the rigours of playing and training greater than he was in the last couple of weeks of the season."
Goodes, who turns 34 in January, is contracted until the end of the 2014 season.
