Vaea Fifita will be the Hurricanes' only available All Black not to feature in their season opener against the Waratahs.
The loose forward suffered a minor hamstring injury when he returned to training in January, which put him behind in his fitness.
Hurricanes coach John Plumtree did not want to risk him at this early stage, meaning he will be sidelined alongside first-five Beauden Barrett, who is serving one of his All Blacks leave weeks as he returns from his honeymoon.
"He [Fifita] came back from leave and was OK, but he did his hamstring at training, which put him on the back foot," Plumtree said.
"From then on basically it was catchup for him. He was trying to get the hamstring right, but while you're doing that you can't do the conditioning, so that's why he's a bit behind the eight ball, and there's no use putting him out there while he's like that, so we gave other guys an opportunity and gave Vaea a chance to get back to 100 per cent."
Frontline All Blacks Jordie Barrett (fullback), Ngani Laumape (second-five), TJ Perenara (halfback) and Ardie Savea (openside flanker) will all start at Brookvale Oval on Saturday, while hooker Dane Coles has been named on the bench. Perenara will captain the run-on side.
Outside of the big names, the most intriguing selections came at lock and first-five.
Former Highlander Fletcher Smith was named to start at 10 after beating out Jackson Garden-Bachop in their pre-season positional duel.
Garden-Bachop did not make the 23, with overseas returnee James Marshall on the bench to cover 10 and fullback.
"That selection was tough for all of us as coaches," Plumtree said.
"Both [Smith and Garden-Bachop] worked really hard, we gave them both even time in pre-season, but we just felt for this fixture, we'd like to give Fletcher the opportunity."
Manawatu's Liam Mitchell, 23, continues his rise to prominence after being named to start alongside James Blackwell at lock. Mitchell played a season in Spain in 2016 before his provincial debut in 2017. That led to his first Super Rugby contract this season and now his first start.