Or the ranger might cast Entangle and trap all the goblins before the fight has even begun.
You mean he could cast one of his three spells for the day, to imposed the Restrained condition on probably 5 of the 8 goblins. That's nice and all, but it doesn't actually remove any goblins from the fight.
So what's the problem? The Ranger was able to quickly fire off a really useful spell to crowd control some of the goblins. If the goblins that made their save run away from the party and use ranged weapons the PCs would have to fight through the Entangle spell to get to them. And the ones still in the Entangle could try to make a Strength save to escape or attack with their bows with disadvantage. Great! The spell was useful.
This doesn't steal any spotlight time from the rest of the PCs who now have the opportunity to capitalize on the goblin's situation. The Rogue would get Sneak Attack because he could attack with Advantage on the Restrained goblins. The Barbarian can show off his strength by running into the Entangle and fighting them there. The Wizard can fire off a Fire Bolt with Advantage. The Cleric can... do whatever Clerics do.
So the Ranger going first didn't steal the spotlight from anyone. In fact he probably just let that spotlight shine a little brighter.
