Filament coming out squiggly and uneven

Hi, this is my first post here so be kind. Anyway a little bit ago the thin metal strip that's attached to the extruder got caught in the open hole where you can see the filament on the Makerbot replicator 5th gen. This caused it to warp really bad and it started printing squiggly lines, just generally not printing right anymore. I tried swapping extruders (no luck), and bending it back into place as best i can with my hands because I dont know what to do to fix it. Any help would be greatly appreciated and in your response please know i'm very new to 3d printers and im teaching myself blind.

any idea what prupose that strip is supposed to serve.
I'd be inclined to totally remove it. flatten it out and stick it back.

Probably try printing without it first :-)