All season the University of Denver hockey team talked about taking the next step in their third season under Coach Jim Montgomery.

Last season, they reached the final eight. Saturday night the No. 7 Pioneers (24-9-6) gave themselves a chance to move further, putting together one of their most complete performances in recent memory, a 7-2 thrashing of No. 12 Boston University in an NCAA West Regional semifinal at St. Paul, Minn.

Eleven skaters had points for DU, which had a season high in goals. Defenseman Will Butcher scored two power-play goals, fellow blue-liner Blake Hillman got the scoring surge started and the Pacific Rim Line combined for two goals and three assists. Dylan Gambrell and Trevor Moore scored, and Danton Heinen was one of three Pioneers, along with Quinten Shore and Troy Terry, with three assists.

The victory was a far cry from a 5-4 Halloween afternoon loss at BU earlier this season.

“I think (it shows our improvement),” Montgomery said. “There was some puck luck involved to beat them by this kind of score. That being said, a big part of what we try to do is peak at this time of the year.”

Tanner Jaillet shut out the Terriers for 52:45, allowed two late goals and finished with 19 saves to get his 13th victory in 2016.

The Terriers (21-13-5) gave the Pioneers plenty of room to operate, and that proved to be their undoing. Time and again DU gained the offensive zone with little to no resistance, and the Pioneers made BU pay repeatedly.

After BU gained some momentum with a couple of early power plays, DU went to work. Hillman went to the net to follow Evan Janssen’s shot and beat Sean Maguire to give the Pioneers a 1-0 lead with 6:11 to play in the first.

Gambrell made it 2-o with a wicked backhander after Heinen created a turnover behind the BU net, corralled the puck and feed his line mate on the lower right circle.

“They definitely outplayed us for the first five minutes of the game,” Butcher said. “They came out and played hard. We just kept our composure. We communicated as a group we needed to get a job done.”

The Pioneers effectively ended the game in the first three minutes of the second period. Butcher found himself alone in the high slot on a first-minute power play and rifled the puck past a screened Maguire.

“I had two great screens, from Dylan Gambrell on the first one and Quentin Shore on the second one,” Butcher said.

Just over two minutes later Matt Marcinew took a feed from Jarid Lukosevicius between the circles and beat Maguire, who then headed to the bench 2:58 into second.

“We started to get pucks in and had great puck pressure from our second layers and our third layers, we were bodying them,” captain Grant Arnold said.

Added Montgomery, “We thought we had a speed advantage on them, especially on transition. … In the second period, our forecheck was really good.

“(At 3-0) you could see them hang their heads. We talked about let’s put our foot on the gas while they’re down.”

That the Pioneers did.

Janssen took one of Terry’s many seeing-eye passes and scored with 4:12 left in the period to make it 5-0.

The teams traded goals in the third period, with Butcher scoring on a 5-on-3 and Moore getting an even-strength goal, while senior Danny O’Regan and Mike Moran scored for BU.

The Pioneers dominated in the face-off circle, winning 28 of 49 face-offs (57 percent) and also out shot (25-21) and out hit (13-9) the Terriers.

On Sunday the Pioneers will play WCHA tournament champion Ferris State, which knocked off St. Cloud State, 5-4, in overtime earlier Saturday, for the right to go to the Frozen Four in Tampa, Fla., in two weeks.

“It’s a Game 7 in NHL terms,” Arnold said. “You’ve got to be ready when that puck drops.

“Another thing is taking advantage of opportunities. You have to enjoy the moment but you can’t let the moment take advantage of you.”