Well figured I'd follow up, the soldering iron was a no-go I couldn't get the heater block hot enough to remove the screw holding the heater cartridge in. I decided to connect the heater cartridge back into the printer control board, but left the thermister connected to the hot mounted to the printer, turned on the printer and set it to heat up the "nozzle" to 220, verified it was working with a laser thermometer. When it got hot enough I was able to remove the screw holding the heater cartridge, the damaged thermister, nozzle and a part if the heat sink that was stuck there as well. tomorrow I'll soak it in paint thinner to clean off what I can and then put it back in the printer.
Thanks for all the suggestions.