It’s also worth remembering that with flaps out of up and below the path - say from vectoring, for example, engaging VNAV will result in VNAV PTH and auto throttle speed.
There are some ways of mitigating a high speed target when the window closes. One is keeping the FMC descent speed updated, or updating it to current speed before engaging VNAV. Another that some favour is putting sensible speed constraints against waypoints on the intermediate approach for a more realistic descent/deceleration strategy, although many are wary of programming anything below clean speed to happen automatically.