Injured St Kilda skipper Nick Riewoldt says ideally he will step down from the captaincy of the AFL club at the end of this season and has nominated Brendon Goddard as a likely successor.

While Riewoldt hopes to play on for three more years, the 29-year-old says it could help the Saints' development to have a younger player in charge.

"Ideally for the club's development, I'm not captain next year," Riewoldt told Melbourne's SEN radio.

"I think it's probably silly at this stage to say that's going to be the case.

"But whatever's best for the club and the club's development going forward I'm going to be more than happy to fall in line with that."

While Goddard is yet to sign a contract for next season, Riewoldt said he was a standout candidate, although he said the Saints might opt to go with someone even younger.

"BJ (Goddard) is probably the frontrunner, but you look at the age and the demographic, BJ's 27, so it depends which way the club wants to go," he said.

"I think they'll sit down at some stage unless they already have and have a really good talk about it and I'm sure I'll be part of those discussions.

"It is an interesting one, do you give it to a young guy while there's some senior guys around?

"For me, BJ's the obvious one.

"Clearly he's got some (contract) stuff going on with the club at the moment that hopefully gets resolved soon and then that will paint a bit of a clearer picture."

Meanwhile, Riewoldt said he would push hard to return from his knee injury in the home and away season's last two rounds provided the Saints retained any sort of finals chance.

"As long as we're a mathematical possibility of still playing finals I'll be doing everything I can to get back," he said.

He said when he initially sustained what turned out to be a tendon injury against Melbourne last round he feared his career might be over.

"I feared the worst straight away," he said.

"I suppose when you get towards the latter stages of your career, which I certainly am, you worry about what implications that might have.

"So walking off, I was concerned about the ACL and whether potentially it might be your last game of footy."