Knight endgames are like king and pawn endgames. This rule of thumb was given by former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, who observed that if a king and pawn endgame was winning, the evaluation would be the same with knights on the board. We can infer that protected or outside passed pawns can be a huge asset in knight endgames, because the stronger side can always offer to trade knights, and the defending side will need to retreat in order to avoid the trade.
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[Event "rated untimed match"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1951.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Yanovsky"]
[Black "Golonbek"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "David Hayes"]
[BlackElo "0"]
[FEN "1K6/8/8/8/4N2Q/8/6k1/6q1 w - - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[TimeControl "0"]
[WhiteElo "0"]
1. Qg3+ Kh1 ( { Black can try: } 1... Kf1 2. Nd2+ Ke2 3. Qxg1 Kxd2 { White wins
with a large material advantage. } ) 2. Qh3+ Qh2+ 3. Ng3+ Kg1 4. Qf1# 1-0