the.com/power play

means A tactical move—on ice or in office politics—where one side exploits a numbers or positional advantage to force an outcome in their favor.

from The hockey sense dates to the mid-20th century, naming the exact arithmetic of the game: when one team is short a player due to a penalty, the other 'plays the power' of its extra man. The phrase then skated off the rink in the latter 1900s into boardrooms and politics, where 'power play' came to mean any calculated move to leverage an advantage over someone — no penalty box required, just the willingness to use whatever edge you've got.