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.
If you are reading this instead of viewing a chess puzzle or game, then you must enable JavaScript on this website.
[Event "rated untimed match"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Unknown"]
[Black "Unknown593"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "David Hayes"]
[BlackElo "0"]
[FEN "6k1/5pp1/5n1p/R4P2/Pp3N2/r5PK/1r5P/4R3 w - - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[TimeControl "0"]
[WhiteElo "0"]
1. Ng6 ( { White can try: } 1. Ra8+ Kh7 2. Re2 Rxe2 3. Nxe2 b3 4. Rb8 Ne4 5. Nf4 Nd2 6. Rb4 Ra2 7. Nd3 h5 { With a likely draw. } ) 1... Kh7 2. Nf8+ Kh8 3. Ra8 g6 4. fxg6 Kg7 5. Re7 Raa2 6. Rxf7+ Kg8 7. Ne6+ Ne8 8. Rxe8# 1-0