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 "????.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Unknown"]
[Black "Unknown413"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Annotator "David Hayes"]
[BlackElo "0"]
[FEN "8/8/8/pp6/2pK2kP/5N2/2P5/8 b - - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[TimeControl "0"]
[WhiteElo "0"]
1... Kxf3 ( { Black can try: } 1... a4 2. Ne5+ Kxh4 3. Nxc4 bxc4 4. Kxc4 a3 5. Kb3 a2 6. Kxa2 Kg5 7. Kb3 Kf6 8. Kc4 Ke7 9. Kc5 Kd7 10. Kb6 Kc8 11. c4 Kb8 12. c5 Kc8 13. Kc6 Kd8 14. Kb7 Kd7 15. c6+ Kd6 16. c7 Kd5 17. c8=Q { White
wins with a large material advantage. } ) 2. h5 a4 3. h6 ( { White can try: } 3. Kc3 a3 4. h6 b4+ 5. Kxb4 a2 6. h7 a1=Q 7. Kxc4 { Black wins with a large
material advantage. } ) 3... a3 4. h7 a2 5. h8=Q a1=Q+ 6. Kc5 Qxh8 7. Kxb5 Qc3 { Black wins with a large material advantage. } 0-1