Does a knight take everything in its path in chess?

Answer 1

No , only upon the square that it lands .

"The piece that is jumped over is further not affected by the knight: as usual, a knight takes a piece of the opponent by moving to the square that contains that piece. "

Answer 2

After a fashion. But, generally no. A Knight can always move 2 squares forward and one to the side or to 2 squares to the side and one forward.

There are strategies to help contain this. About the best a talented amateur can hope for is swapping pieces. It also depends on what rules one is using. Some allow promotion of a pawn that's reached the 8th square of the far side to be promoted to any piece of either color.

If this is in effect, one could promote their pawn to the other player's color and effectively block an escape route (seldom applies in modern Chess).