Joe Perry scored three times and added an assist, Pat Nagle stopped 25 shots, Garrett Thompson had two goals as the Komets defeated the Quad City Mallards 7-4 in a battle of the top two teams in Midwest Division on Friday night.

The first-place Komets are 7-0-1 in their last eight games and play at Moline, Illinois, again Sunday.

A crowd of 5,321 attended the game at the iWireless Center.

Perry and Jamie Schaafsma scored the first two goals, giving the Komets a 2-0 lead as they had 14 of the first 17 shots, but Kevin Henderson and Austin Coldwell evened it for Quad City.

Perry regained the lead for Fort Wayne at 2:02 of the second period before Matt Carey answered at 9:18.

Shawn Szydlowski put the Komets (18-10-2) up 4-3 at 14:23. Perry completed his hat trick during a power play at 8:13 of the third period and Thompson made it 6-3. After Sam Warning scored for Quad City, Thompson had an empty netter.

Brody Hoffman had 32 saves for Quad City (16-15-3).